From: ap096@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Kevin P. Dahlhausen) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Coke machine at CMU In a previous article, jarnot@kin.lap.upenn.edu (Kevin J. Jarnot) says: >I have recently heard of a Coke machine at CMU that is connected to the >Internet. Anyone have the whole story??? > Sure, here is an article from some time ago..... From: tgl@zog.cs.cmu.edu (Tom Lane) >Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: The only Coke machine on the Internet This story is old news to ex-CMU folk, but may be amusing to others. Since time immemorial (well, maybe 1970) the Carnegie-Mellon CS department has maintained a departmental Coke machine, which sells bottles of Coke for a dime or so less than other vending machines around campus. As no Real Programmer can function without caffeine, the machine is very popular. (I recall hearing that it had the highest sales volume of any Coke machine in the Pittsburgh area.) The machine is loaded on a rather erratic schedule by grad student volunteers. In the mid-seventies expansion of the department caused people's offices to be located ever further away from the main terminal room where the Coke machine stood. It got rather annoying to traipse down to the third floor only to find the machine empty; or worse, to shell out hard-earned cash to receive a recently loaded, still warm Coke. One day a couple of people got together to devise a solution. They installed microswitches in the Coke machine to sense how many bottles were present in each of its six columns of bottles. The switches were hooked up to CMUA, the PDP-10 that was then the main departmental computer. A server program was written to keep tabs on the Coke machine's state, including how long each bottle had been in the machine. When you ran the companion status inquiry program, you'd get a display that might look like this: EMPTY EMPTY 1h 3m COLD COLD 1h 4m This let you know that cold Coke could be had by pressing the lower-left or lower-center button, while the bottom bottles in the two right-hand columns had been loaded an hour or so beforehand, so were still warm. (I think the display changed to just "COLD" after the bottle had been there 3 hours.) The final piece of the puzzle was needed to let people check Coke status when they were logged in on some other machine than CMUA. CMUA's Finger server was modified to run the Coke status program whenever someone fingered the nonexistent user "coke". (For the uninitiated, Finger normally reports whether a specified user is logged in, and if so where.) Since Finger requests are part of standard ARPANET (now Internet) protocols, people could check the Coke machine from any CMU computer by saying "finger coke@cmua". In fact, you could discover the Coke machine's status from any machine anywhere on the Internet! Not that it would do you much good if you were a few thousand miles away... As far as I know nothing similar has been done elsewhere, so CMU can legitimately boast of having the only Coke machine on the Internet. The Coke machine programs were used for over a decade, and were even rewritten for Unix Vaxen when CMUA was retired in the early eighties. The end came just a couple years ago, when the local Coke bottler discontinued the returnable, coke-bottle-shaped bottles. The old machine couldn't handle the nonreturnable, totally-uninspired-shape bottles, so it was replaced by a new vending machine. This was not long after the New Coke fiasco (undoubtedly the century's greatest example of fixing what wasn't broken). The combination of these events left CMU Coke lovers sufficiently disgruntled that no one has bothered to wire up the new machine. I'm a little fuzzy about the dates, but I believe all the other details are accurate. The man page for the second-generation (Unix) Coke programs credits the hardware work to John Zsarnay, the software to David Nichols and Ivor Durham. I don't recall who did the original PDP-10 programs. -- tom lane Internet: tgl@cs.cmu.edu UUCP: !cs.cmu.edu!tgl BITNET: tgl%cs.cmu.edu@cmuccvma CompuServe: >internet:tgl@cs.cmu.edu From: eeyimkn@unicorn.nott.ac.uk (M. Knell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: CMU Coke machine; was Re: networked appliances >From article , by clay@panix.com (Clay Irving): >> >> Since time immemorial (well, maybe 1970) the Carnegie-Mellon CS >> department has maintained a departmental Coke machine which sells >> bottles of Coke for a dime or so less than other vending machines >> around campus. I've checked up all this fingerable Coke machine business. RFC1288 (which is the current definition for the Finger protocol) includes the following (no kidding): #Network Working Group D. Zimmerman #Request for Comments: 1288 Center for Discrete Mathematics and #Obsoletes: RFCs 1196, 1194, 742 Theoretical Computer Science # December 1991 # # The Finger User Information Protocol # #[stuff deleted] # #2.5.5. Vending machines # # Vending machines SHOULD respond to a {C} request with a list of all # items currently available for purchase and possible consumption. # Vending machines SHOULD respond to a {U}{C} request with a detailed # count or list of the particular product or product slot. Vending # machines should NEVER NEVER EVER eat money. # So there you go.. it's all legal! Now to network my coffee machine... Cheers Mike /dev/null> -- +-- -=- If infants can have infancy, why can't adults have adultery? -=- ---+ \------ Mike Knell, Willoughby Hall, University of Nottingham, IO92JX ------/ \ AMPRnet: mikee@g7gpa.ampr.org -=- Internet: eeyimkn@unicorn.nott.ac.uk / \ 'oh well, whatever, nevermind...' -=- AX25: G7GPA@GB7BAD.#23.GBR.EU / Sample output (dated 3-2-93 at 16:40) finger bargraph@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu [COKE.ELAB.CS.CMU.EDU] WARNING: This software still contains at least one bug! Coke Server Ver 0.99 2-26-93 Coke and M&M information may not be correct, use at your own risk. M & M Buttons /-----\ C: CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC........ | | C: C............ D: C............ | | C: CCCCC........ D: CC........... |*****| C: CCCC......... D: C............ |*****| C: CCCC......... \-----/ S: CCCCCCCCCCC.. | Key: | 0 = warm; 9 = 90% cold; C = cold; . = empty | Leftmost soda/pop will be dispensed next ---^--- finger @coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu [COKE.ELAB.CS.CMU.EDU] WARNING: This software still contains at least one bug! Coke Server Ver 0.99 2-26-93 Information may not be correct, use at your own risk. Coke: Cold: 32 Warm: 0 Buttons Diet coke: Cold: 4 Warm: 0 C: COLD Sprite: Cold: 11 Warm: 0 C: COLD D: COLD C: COLD D: COLD C: COLD D: COLD C: COLD S: COLD finger mnm@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu [COKE.ELAB.CS.CMU.EDU] WARNING: This software still contains at least one bug! Coke Server Ver 0.99 2-26-93 Information may not be correct, use at your own risk. The M&M machine is 48% full. Other coke machines have popped up on the net recently, including: tigger:~ [52]>finger drink@csh.rit.edu [csh.rit.edu] Login: admin Name: drink admin stuff Directory: /dev/null Shell: /bin/sync Last login Sun Sep 26 15:48 (EDT) on ttyp2 from nick.csh.rit.edu No Plan. Login: drink Name: Drink (Coke Machine) Directory: /u2/u0/drink Shell: /u0/drink/shell/shell Office: NRH Hallway Never logged in. Plan: Balance: $ 0.00 1) Jolt! $ 0.50 Empty (9/44) 2) Mountain Dew $ 0.50 Full (35/44) 3) Dr Pepper $ 0.50 Full (30/44) 4) Kiwi-Strawberry $ 0.60 Full (28/44) 5) Coke Classic $ 0.50 Full (33/44) Drink 3+ hrs 1-3 hrs 0-1 hrs Total ::::: :::::: ::::::: ::::::: ::::: Jolt! 9 0 0 9 Mountain Dew 35 0 0 35 Dr Pepper 30 0 0 30 Kiwi-Strawberry 28 0 0 28 Coke Classic 33 0 0 33 +------------------------+ | Computer Science House | | Drink Machine | +----+----+----+----+----+ | Jo | Mo | Dr | Ki | Co | | 9 | 35 | 30 | 28 | 33 | |$.50|$.50|$.50|$.60|$.50| +------------------------+ | +----+ + | | |+--+' | | | ||__ |___| | | | || | | | |+--+. | | | +----+ + | +------------------------+ tigger:~ [53]> finger coke@cs.wisc.edu [cs.wisc.edu] [coke@lemon.cs.wisc.edu] Login name: coke In real life: coke machine test account Directory: /var/home/coke Shell: /var/home/cokead/bin/coke On since Oct 18 16:26:52 on tty00 39 seconds Idle Time Plan: The Coke (tm) machine is computer operated. It is available to SACM members, Computer Sciences personnel, and CS&S building support staff. If you do not have an account set up or your account is below $.35 then you can leave a check made out to SACM in a sealed envelope in the SACM mailbox (fifth floor) with an initial password. You will receive an email confirmation when the account has been created/updated. If you have any problems with the operation of the Coke machine please see one of the Coke Account Personnel listed below or send mail to coke@cs. ,-----------------------------------------------------. | Coke account personnel office email | +-----------------------------------------------------+ | Brian Cole (chair) cs1330 tuc@cs | | Jeff Hollingsworth cs6376 hollings@cs | | Ted Faber cs7390 faber@cs | `-----------------------------------------------------' Login name: cokead In real life: coke machine admin account Directory: /var/home/cokead Shell: /usr/misc/tcsh Last login Mon Nov 1 12:42 on ttyq3 from swiss.cs.wisc.ed Project: to appease the imbibing masses Plan: The Coke (tm) machine is computer operated. It is available to SACM members, Computer Sciences personnel, and CS&S building support staff. If you do not have an account set up or your account is below $.35 then you can leave a check made out to SACM in a sealed envelope in the SACM mailbox (fifth floor) with an initial password. You will receive an email confirmation when the account has been created/updated. If you have any problems with the operation of the Coke machine please see one of the Coke Account Personnel listed below or send mail to coke@cs. ,-----------------------------------------------------. | Coke account personnel office email | +-----------------------------------------------------+ | Brian Cole (chair) cs1330 tuc@cs | | Jeff Hollingsworth cs6376 hollings@cs | | Ted Faber cs7390 faber@cs | `-----------------------------------------------------' tigger:~ [55]> finger coke@gu.uwa.edu.au [gu.uwa.edu.au] The UCC Coke machine. Checking Coke machine status... Slot 0 has fanta. Slot 1 has diet coke. Slot 2 has diet lift. Slot 3 has diet coke. Slot 4 has diet sprite . Slot 5 has club lemon. Slot 6 has coke. May your pink fish bing into the distance. A fuller list that was posted to alt.hackers about 6 months ago [5/93] finger @coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu (Coke machine at Carnegie-Mellon U) finger mnm@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu (M&M machine at Carnegie-Mellon U) finger bargraph@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu (Visual map of CMU coke machine) finger drink@csh.rit.edu (Soda machine at Rochester Institute of Technology) finger coke@cs.wisc.edu (Coke machine at U of Wisconsin) finger coke@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (Coke machine at University Computer Club, University of Western Australia) From: pete@minster.york.ac.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Internetted Appliances Date: 29 Nov 1993 18:10:39 GMT Koos van den Hout (koos@kzdoos.hacktic.nl) wrote: : Connecting a Coffee machine to the Internet would be fun. And I can too imagine : remote controlling our coffee machine (although I'd like it to deliver the : coffee. It works great but it's a long walk). And since our coffee is free : (nice employer, eh?) it wouldn't be that hard. A colleague has told me about a coffee machine somewhere in the Cambridge computing lab... basically it's wired up to an camera and image processing system and there's an Xcoffeetool which shows you how much is left in the jug. Quite simple, you may think, but this system also lets you 'reserve' coffee (think about it, it might take you a few minutes to get to the machine from any given office) so it goes away and does some calculation, changing the image everyone sees to reflect what the situation would be _after_ you've got your coffee... The details may be a little wrong, but if there are any cl.cam.ac.uk people on afc, please fill them in! pete -- Peter Fenelon - Research Associate - High Integrity Systems Engineering Group, Dept. of Computer Science, University of York, York, Y01 5DD (+44/0)904 433388 Email: pete@minster.york.ac.uk ``Art is a science with more than 7 variables'' Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Internet Coke machines 1 From: stan.salter@ablelink.org (Stan Salter) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 21:22:00 -0500 Around the internet, various E.E. and Computer Science geek^H^H^H^H students have wired up the softdrink machines into the net. Presumably this lets them find out if there are any drinks in the machine without walking down the hall. I was not able to connect with the coke machines and the M&M vending machine at Carnegie Mellon, but that's in Pittsburgh so that may be understandable. I'm told the CPU of choice is the Motorola 68000. From: DannyA@pop.com Subject: Coffee on the Internet Date: Fri, 4 Mar 94 07:47:04 PST Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From "The Economist", Science and Technology, February 19th, 1994 (partial transcription): "Percolating through The coffee machine at Cambridge University's computer Laboratory is not just plugged into the mains. It is plugged into the Internet. With a few taps on the keyboard, a thirsty hacker down the hall-or accross the world for that matter-can call to the screen a video picture of the Cambridge coffee pot, taken a minute or two previously and sent through the computer network. Never again need anyone trudge to the coffee machine only to find it empty." DANNYA@POP.COM -- Message sent via DigitalPopcorn * Los Angeles Newsgroups: alt.folklore.college,alt.folklore.computers,alt.internet.services,alt.answers,news.answers From: drink@drink.csh.rit.edu Subject: FAQ: CSH Coke Machine Information Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 18:45:24 GMT Archive-name: csh-coke-machine-info Version: $Id: FAQ,v 1.2 1994/05/23 15:57:24 pat Exp pat $ Posting-Frequency: monthly Contents: 1. _A_Brief_Overview_of_The_Computer_Science_House_Coke_Machine_. 2. _The_History_Of_Our_Machine_. 3. _The_Hardware_In_The_Machine_. 4. _The_Software_On_the_Unix_Side_. 5. _The_Wide-Area_Access_Points_. a) graph b) xdrink 6. _Current_Plans_for_the_Drink_Machine_. 1. _A_Brief_Overview_of_The_Computer_Science_House_Coke_Machine_. The following was only slightly modified from a mail message written by Tad Hunt (Wed, 27 Apr 1994 12:25:54 -0400) Our drink system is composed of several parts, the drink machine itself, the computer inside the machine, the serial connection to our drink server machine, the accounting software, and finally the wide area information systems (such as finger). The computer inside the drink machine is very simple. It accepts commands to "drop" drinks from slots 1-5 (by sending an ascii '1'-'5' from the server), and a command to query status (an ascii 'A'). The computer drops drinks by tripping a relay to the solenoid on the particular slot requested. The status returned is a bit pattern indicating if each slot is either full or empty (full is defined as one or more cans remaining) based on sensors in the slots. All of this can be done through the wires that normally interface to the buttons on the front of the machine. On the server machine, there is a program called "drink" which keeps track of money in user accounts, how many cans are in each slot, the kind of drink in each slot, and how long the drink has been in the machine (for determining how cold it is). This is the only program with permission to access "/dev/drink", which is the serial port the Coke Machine is connected to. If the serial port isn't locked, it locks it, then querys the status of the machine to display a menu to the user, and allows them to choose a drink. If the user has enough money in their account, and the slot isn't marked empty, the program asks for a time delay to wait before dropping the drink (in case the user needs to walk to the machine), then sends the command down the serial line to drop the appropriate drink. Finally comes the wide area information systems. We setup an alias for one of our machines (satan.csh.rit.edu) to answer requests for drink.csh.rit.edu, and rewrote the finger program to display machine status by rsh(1)ing to the server machine and running the drink program in a mode to query machine statistics. Also added at this point was an XWindows drink client program, which uses command line options to "drink" to allow users to run an XWindows drink machine program and drop drinks by clicking a button. You can run this program yourself -- if you have XWindows -- by doing the following: "finger $DISPLAY@drink.csh.rit.edu", it will send "xdrink" to your display. Also, you can get a graph of machine statistics by doing: "finger graph@drink.csh.rit.edu" The drink system will soon be entering the "client-server" age with the addition of a debit daemon written by one of the drink support people, which will be useful for more than just drink, it's a generic debit system. Most if not all of this system will soon be available for anonymous ftp from ftp.csh.rit.edu in pub/drink. 2. _The_History_Of_Our_Machine_. Somebody here at RIT threw away a Coke Machine. It was pretty beat up, but the members of Computer Science House plucked it from the trash none-the-less. The Coke Machine was cleaned up and put to use. It ran as a normal vending machine for some time in this way. But, as the red-tape flies, the company who owns the vending machine rights to the RIT campus complained that we were threatening their rights. In a wonderous swirl of politics and crazy techies resulted in the Coke Machine being hooked up to the computer systems. For, as you see, a 'Vending Machine' is a machine that accepts money and gives out consumables in return. We don't have a 'Vending Machine' so much as a high-tech group refrigerator. The Coke Machine only accepts money or returns a drink. If you're silly enough to put money in the little slot, you've lost your money. If you've already given money to a drink admin, you can dispense a drink through the computer systems. Not long after that, a newer Coke Machine was donated to Computer Science House. The first implementations of the Coke Machine were done on a small processor on a bread-board. The newer implementation is a bit more 'rugged' (and explained below) in that many of the connections are actually soldered. 8^). This machine has been painted the CSH colors (purple and pink a la DEC/pdp). It bears the Computer Science House name. We're proud to have it on the Internet, but we must admit that CMU beat us to the punch. Our big advantage over their machine though is the ability to drop a drink from where you sit and have it arrive at the same time you get to the machine. Our machine has been the subject of little blurbs in major publications across the country and is listed as the 7th-most-fingered site by Wired magazine. And, the current record for long-distance drops is Arizona to Rochester. 3. _The_Hardware_In_The_Machine_. The computer in the machine is a small 8051 board with a serial connection, LCD display, A/D convertor, and several out ports. The EPROM that this board runs from contains code written by Sean McGranaghan. That code is loosely based on code written by Frank Giuffrida for that board's intended purpose as power-supply monitor and regulator. As is mentioned above, this software simply reads the status lines that were at one time hooked up to the LED indicators on the buttons of the machine to check the fullness of a slot. In its current incarnation, the sensor on the Jolt slot tends to stick in the 'Empty' position. Fortunately for us caffeine mongers, the 'Empty' indicator can be ignored. If a request for status is received on the serial line, a bit mask is formed indicating which slots are full. This bit mask is sent back over the serial line to the waiting program that made the request. In this mask, the bits 0 through 4 are used to represent the 5 slots on the machine. The 5th bit is also set to ensure that the return value is a printable ascii character and as a verification that it actually did check the slots. If an ascii digit on the range '1' - '5' is sent to this board, it triggers a solid-state relay which closes the circuit that would normally be closed by pressing the button on the front of the machine. If this is successful, a 'D' is transmitted back to the waiting program. If this fails, an 'E' is sent back to the waiting program. ('D' is for drop. 'E' is for error.) The LCD on the board constantly displays a message 'CSH Coke Machine' and the amount of time since the board has been reset in the form 'Day 000 00:00:00'. Currently, several schemes are being considered for this board to verify that it is talking to some program and not to someone with tip(1) access to the device. This will make the Coke Machine no more vulnerable to root attack than user attack. 4. _The_Software_On_the_Unix_Side_. The board in the Coke Machine is connected to a CCI Power 6/32 Tahoe that is currently running BSD 4.3 Shanzer (a custom blend of 4.3 Reno, 4.3 Tahoe, and 4.4 Alpha). /dev/drink is configured as a 9600-baud connection to the board in the Coke Machine. The connection is over a standard RS232 connection. The software consists, currently, of one main program called 'drink'. drink(1) maintains a database of user balances and statistics as well as slot statistics. This software has undergone many revisions (read: total rewrites) over the years. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who will admit to having touched it. But, I'll drag in Bob Krzaczek's name into it to as the last person to touch the stuff I hacked on. In its current incarnation, this software keeps track of user balances in CSH-franks. These bear a striking relation to US-dollars in that the exchange rate has always been 100 CSH-franks to 1 U.S. Dollar. But, such relationships are human constructions and probably just coincidences that reflect deep underlying symmetries in the web of the Universe (or not) [much like the way RIT student ids resemble, but are distinct from, social security numbers]. CSH-franks are known by some as CSHmids and CSH-wonder-wubbas. But... the last 6 minutes of voting turned up 2 votes for CSH-franks, 1.5 votes for CSH-bobas, several incoherent mumbles about Pink Floyd, a compromise for CSH-verypinkmetaloidoncebelongedtofrankthenBOBAwonderwubbamids, and not much else in the close-to-relevant category. [If Ross Perot was ever part of a CSH wall(1) war, he'd think twice about electronic town-meetings.] The drink(1) program offers several command line options. These are: -o [12345rg] where a number specifies a slot to drop a drink from, 'r' specifies to drop a drink from a random slot (choosing from the full-ones), and 'g' is a special gamble option (to be described later). -d N delays for N seconds before dropping the drink. -l login useful for dropping a drink from the balance of the user given by 'login'. This option prompts you for a password to validate you. -m forces menu mode where the current slot statistics are displayed. -b shows the user's balance. -s shows the user's raw statistics as number of drinks dropped per slot. -S shows the user's statistics in relation to the global statistics. This options shows number of drinks dropped by the user on a per-slot basis and the number of drinks dropped overall on a per-slot basis and the percentage per-slot the user makes up. For example, for me, now, I have dropped 382 of 2412 drinks dropped from slot 5 since last time the statistics were cleared. I account for 15.8375 percent of the drops from slot 5 (Coke Classic). Also given in these statistics is the current gamble cost and the accumulated gamble (to be explained later). -t shows the number of drinks in each slot divided into time slots. Along the vertical, each slot is shown. Across the horizontal, the number of drinks in the slot for less than one hour, between one and three hours, more than three hours, and the total in the slot is shown. -T This option is similar to the last but it puts out the information in a form easily readable by other programs. First, it puts out the current time as returned by time(2). Then, it puts out on the following the title of the first slot and a string representing how many drinks are in the slot and what times they were placed there. This string is of the form: number time number time number time 0 All time(2) values are printed in hexidecimal. These couplets are repeated for each slot. The gamble option was originally designed to make use of the fact that the drink machine isn't always full and the fact that people may not have enough of a balance to afford a drink. With the gamble option, the cost of gambling is computed by adding up the prices of all of the full slots, dividing by the total number of slots and adding the 'gamble cost'. The 'gamble cost' is currently 2 CSH-franks. This is a fudge-factor to favor drink staying in the black. The more slots that are empty, the lower the cost. The current risk is 12 CSH-franks, but the odds of getting a drink are only 1 in 5 (and that slot is the Diet Mystery Slot (a double whammee)). A side goal is to integrate a 'Coke' as a potion in some deep dungeon in nethack and, if you quaff it, and the accumulated gamble cost is greater than than the price of a Coke, it'll drop you one. The current accumulated gamble cost is 262 CSH-franks. 5. _The_Wide-Area_Software_. If you have finger(1) access, X access, or Mosaic(1) access, you can witness our Coke Machine first-hand from where you sit. There are two main pathways to our Coke Machine through the Internet. These are through Tad Hunt's modified finger(1) @drink.csh.rit.edu and through Eric Van Hensbergen's xdrink(1) interface. Both of these can be accessed from the CSH Drink Machine page on the World Wide Web. The URL for that page is: http://www.csh.rit.edu/proj/drink.html 5a) graph One of the first bits of net access we allowed to our Coke Machine was to finger(1) it to get information. The current state of the Coke Machine can be divined in several ways through finger(1). Tad Hunt rewrote the finger(1) program at drink.csh.rit.edu to handle several virtual users. The first of these can be accessed by fingering graph@drink.csh.rit.edu. This will display an informational message and an ascii representation of the Coke Machine. This representation includes the price at each slot, the number of drinks in each slot, and a graph representing the coldness of those drinks. Emprical tests have shown that complete coldness of a drink is achieved in three hours. A different view of the contents of the coke machine can be obtained by fingering drink@drink.csh.rit.edu. There is a great deal of redundant information in this, but.... what can you do? Fingering info@drink.csh.rit.edu will provide more information into the ways to finger the coke machine. And, if you're running X-windows, a command like 'finger mymachine.mynet.myorg:0.0@drink.csh.rit.edu` or 'finger ${DISPLAY}@drink.csh.rit.edu' should bring up an X-interface to our drink software on your display. b) xdrink The xdrink(1) interface was written by Eric Van Hensbergen. It presents bitmaps for each of the slots (they easily get out of date (sorry)). It offers a pointy-clicky interface for those not too keen on command lines. It represents the fullness of each slot with a bar-graph, the contents with a bitmap, and the mystery-slot as a flashing pattern of the bitmaps. 6. _Current_Plans_for_the_Drink_Machine_. I am currently almost finished with a new incarnation of the drink software. This incarnation involves a 'telnet' interface similar to those of 'smtp' and 'ftp'. It also provides a means for kerberos authentication. Additionally, it will talk several languages from English to German to Esperanto to Lojban to Rot13 (English) to Piglatin (English). More on this as it's available. Also, in this incarnation, one will be able to risk any amount of money above the gamble cost, choosing their desired slot, and having odds proportional to the amount risked divided by the cost of the desired drink. For more further questions or to arrange a personal tour of Computer Science House, mail drink@drink.csh.rit.edu. -- "...and these lights.... I can feel them sucking the life out of me.... Suck *Suck* Suck...." -- JvV.