WEBVTT - The History of Vending Machines 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.239 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.360 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:17.959 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.200 are you? So? For the last several years, I've been 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.079 playing a game that's a computer game that's been an 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.040 alpha build for like nearly a decade. In fact, the 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.920 first build was released in twenty thirteen, and the developers 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.920 still give the game the alpha designation and it's still 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.720 in the alpha build. It hasn't even entered beta testing yet. 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.199 This is the survival crafting game the zombie game called 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.959 Seven Days to Die, So, as you would imagine, you're 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.760 a survivor in a zombie apocalypse and you have to 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.200 cobble together a way to survive and perhaps even thrive 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.520 in a world where every seven days, hordes of zombies 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.400 run straight at you, no matter where you're high. They 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.400 know exactly where you are, and they move super fast 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.440 to come and get you anyway. One of the important 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.560 things in that game is that there are vending machines 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.480 where you can purchase food and drinks and medications that 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.160 will help you survive. I have no idea who in 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.759 the game is restocking all those vending machines. I mean, 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:24.680 some of them are located where there are traders, like 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.400 as in people who trade, but there are other vending machines. 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.800 You'll just find random buildings and they still seem to 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.039 have a stock and they work. So that's kind of interesting. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:35.920 But it got me to thinking I should do an 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.240 episode about sort of the history of vending machines. They 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.160 have been around for a really long time, and it's 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.240 a clever way to offer a scaled down shopping experience 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.520 without having to mind the store all day. You can 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.360 even design your machine in such a way that it 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.120 attracts people and acts like a salesperson and you don't 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.440 have to pay them. So today we're going to talk 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.280 about the history and a little bit about the technology 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:06.000 of vending machines, and that history stretches back further than 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.959 you might think, unless you've looked into this before, in 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.799 which case you know where I'm going. So you might 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.880 think about visions of like automats in the nineteen fifties, 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.160 and you know old cigarette machines prior to nineteen ninety 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:21.640 seven here in the United States, where they were made 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.240 illegal out of the concern that you know, people under 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.280 age could just purchase cigarettes by putting enough money in 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.360 there and pulling a lever. But we actually have to 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.760 go much further back, all the way back to the 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:40.800 first century of the common era in Egypt, specifically in 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:45.880 the city Alexandria. So in that city was a dude 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.320 named Hero or Huron sometimes. But Hero was kind of 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.760 a tinkerer and a thinker. He was an engineer and 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.560 an inventor. He experimented with all sorts of clever and 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:03.440 sometimes danger devices, and among his gadgets and gizmos of 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.960 plenty was the very first vending machine that we are 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.600 aware of. I mean, maybe someone made one before Hero did, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.240 but this is the first one on record, because who knows. 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.720 People didn't write everything down. But Hero's invention is one 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:20.880 that we do know of what. We don't know whether 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:22.720 or not he actually ever built it, but we know 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.000 he designed it. And it was a pretty simple idea 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.280 when you get down to it. Now. When one would 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.359 go and visit a holy temple back in those days, 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.600 one was expected to wash one's hands in holy water, 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.560 and Hero came up with a way to dispense holy 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.560 water while also earning money for the temple. He designed 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:48.800 a holy water dispenser, a holy water vending machine. That 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.000 is a wild thing to say, but here's how it worked. 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.680 The dispenser, which looked kind of like a big urn 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.480 in the drawings I've seen, had a spiggot that was 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.080 toward the bottom, so that's obviously where the water would 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.880 come out, and the dispenser would obviously hold the holy 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.360 water inside it. There was a valve on the inside 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.360 of this device that, when it was shut, would keep 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.440 the spigot closed, and if the worshiper were to PLoP 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.839 a coin into a slot in the top of the machine, 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.200 the coin would fall inside the machine and it would 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:29.000 land on a pan that was near the coin slot. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.120 That pan was actually at the other end of a lever. 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.679 This lever would then be attached to a pivot point, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.120 and on the other side of the pivot point the fulcrum. 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.320 In other words, on the other side of the fulcrum, 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.039 it had a connection to that valve. So if you 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.520 were to press down on the pan inside this machine, 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.560 it would cause the lever on the valve side to 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.799 go up and thus open the valve and allow water 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.000 to flow through the spigot. The weight of the coin 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.200 was all it would take. The coin would hit this pan. 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.880 That would add weight to the pan. The pan would 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.840 start to tilt downward, the valve side would go up, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.640 water would come out. Now, Hero actually was fairly clever, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.039 Not just fairly, he was extremely clever on how much 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.440 water would actually dribble out per coin, Like, how do 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.000 you keep that to a specific amount or at least 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:28.000 a general amount. Well, the weight of the coin would 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.279 be enough for the pan to start going down, but 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.880 it would just keep going down until it would reach 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.200 a steep enough angle where the coin would slide off 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.080 the pan and land in another little coin bucket that's 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:46.480 inside this urn, you know, presumably held above the the 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.640 container of water. Now with a coin slid free of 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.000 the pan, now the pan's no longer heavy enough to 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.440 hold down the lever. It tilts back up. The valve 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.280 side comes down, which means the valve closes again and 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.800 it shuts off the water. Your water dispensation is complete. 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.640 You now have the holy water needed to wash your 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.800 hands and go and you know, worship whichever god the 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.479 temple was devoted to. Again, I don't know if Hero 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.440 ever actually built this device, but he definitely described it. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.800 He had a work that loosely translated means mechanics and optics, 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.919 and he described it within that work, and there's no 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:30.760 reason it couldn't work. There's no reason he couldn't have 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.560 built it. It was based off of very simple mechanism. 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.000 Now you would have to get the weights just right 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.680 for the lever and to minimize the chance of a coin, 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.960 you know, just hitting the pan and rolling off and 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.400 then nothing happens, although I guess you could always blame 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.840 it on the fickle gods at that point. There also 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.920 would have been no way for the machine to differentiate 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:57.120 coins or exactly what had pressed down on that plate. So, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.760 in other words, if you were to somehow fit something 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.240 that could go into that slot and push down on 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.120 that pan, then you could get your holy water and 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.240 not spend a coin doing it. So you could use 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.840 like a dummy coin, you know, the old slug routine, 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.720 as they would call it, a slug to represent a coin, 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.360 and you could get a blast of holy water for free. 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.679 Although that doesn't seem like it's really keeping in spirit 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.200 with the purpose of the machine. But you know, it's 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:28.600 also weird to make holy water dispensation a transactional process 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.840 in the first place. If you ask me, I don't know. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.600 I'm not very religious, so it's hard for me to 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:39.400 even say. Anyway, as a design, Hero's machine was pretty 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.800 darn neat. It might not have been too practical, however, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.800 because coins were not uniform in weight or roundness. They 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.640 were not even in broad circulation at the time, so 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.640 it wasn't even necessarily likely that the worshippers would even 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.760 have coins on them. But it does show Hero's ingenuity, 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.680 and it would be the for vending machines. It's just 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.280 that it would take some time before you would get 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.360 to another one. So we enter into a bit of 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.560 a dry spell, not just because we're no longer talking 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.320 about holy water. It's not like Hero came up with 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.400 this invention and then next thing you know, you know, 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:20.200 you had vending machines throughout the ancient and medieval world 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.480 that would to spend stuff like garum and olive, zenda 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.960 and hummus and you know, chainmail, like you didn't have 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.640 those all over the place. It would take more than 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.440 a thousand years actually, before we would start getting into 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.240 descriptions of devices that we might group together in the 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:43.480 family of vending machines. So next up, based on lots 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.440 of different accounts. By the way, it's really hard to 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:51.560 track down good, definitive sources for this. There are a 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.200 lot of sources that all echo the same points, but 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.600 it feels like they're all kind of drawing from each 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.640 other as opposed to, you know, finding a really good 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.120 historian who has really done the work here. But there 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:10.040 are historical accounts in various documents and things like patent filings, 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.400 that kind of thing where we can trace sort of 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.240 a development. But the next one is one that's a 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.520 little it's not quite a vending machine as we would 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.520 think of it. It's not like it's fully automated. And 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.959 also it was portable. And another thing that's interesting is 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.719 that our first vending machine dispensed holy water, so it's 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:36.720 only fitting that the second vending machine dispenses tobacco. It's snuff. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.360 So at this point we're in England and we're in 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.679 the sixteen hundreds, so seventeenth century, and there were these 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:49.800 devices that some pubs had that were known as honesty boxes, 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.000 and this would be in jolly Old England, and patrons 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.880 of this pub could purchase a pinch of snuff or tobacco, 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.080 and what they would do is they would flag down 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.720 a bartender or server who would bring around this, you know, 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.200 a fairly sizable brass box. The top of the box 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.200 was a pair of hinged lids, so think of like 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.920 a hinge in the center and either end of the 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:18.360 box opens for half of the box. So you had 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:23.080 two compartments inside the box, one under each lid. So 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.200 one compartment would serve as the coin receptacle, which would 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.160 be locked in place. Obviously, you don't want patrons getting 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.560 into that and getting their grubby little hands and all 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.560 the coins you've been selecting. The other box was what 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.040 would now hold the tobacco. So on top of these 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.679 boxes there would be a coin slot and a plunger, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.600 so you would put a haypenny a halfpenny in the slot, 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.200 and when you push the plunger down, that would allow 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.239 the coin to slide into the box, into the receptacle, 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.960 and at the same time that also allowed a mechanism 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:02.119 inside the box to shift and unlatch the hinged lid 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.440 that was on top of the tobacco or snuff or whatever. 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.360 So you put a coin in, you push the plunger 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.920 down and then the side with the tobacco in it 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.880 unlatches and the little lid pops up, so you can 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.800 take a pinch of tobacco or snuff, only a pinch. 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.320 That's what you were supposed to do. That's why they 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:24.680 were called honesty boxes, so it was kind of on 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.480 the honor system, although you would also typically have like 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.120 a bartender or server watching your every move to make 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.600 sure you weren't like stealing all the tobacco for just 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:38.040 a haypenny. And then once done, the bar employee would 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:42.160 push down on the lid on the tobacco side and 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.240 it would latch back into place and it be ready 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.680 for the next coin. Like Heroes Invention, this one was 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.800 purely mechanical, and y'all, it took me a while to 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.280 search around and find information on one of these. There 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.880 are a lot of sources that mention them, but again 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.640 they're all pretty much the same. However, I did track 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:03.440 down and antiques site that actually had some examples of 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.760 honesty boxes and including photographs of them, so I could 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.920 actually take a good look at pictures of these things. 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.600 So I can't go into great detail about the mechanisms 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.600 because it wasn't like they were detailing that, but I 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.240 get the general idea that pushing down that plunger and 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.360 allowing the coin to go through activated the mechanism that 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.000 unlatched the other lid, and without a coin, the plunger 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.800 would not go down all the way, so it would 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.520 keep the tobaccos safe from unsavory types who were just 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.640 pretending to put a haypenny in. Okay, we're going to 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.880 take a quick break. When we come back, I'm going 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:40.960 to talk about a trouble maker and a free thinker 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.880 and a radical who believed, get this, that all human 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:50.320 beings should have the same rights, and why he's associated 0:12:50.320 --> 0:13:03.679 with vending machines. But first, let's take a quick break. Okay, 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:08.199 I promised y'all the story of a radical, someone who 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:12.440 thought that everyone should have the same rights, whether they 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:17.480 happened to be male or female. I assume back in 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.120 those days that he did not recognize the concept of 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:26.079 non binary, but still for the time, it was rather 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.680 radical and for the place as well. We are talking 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:35.600 about Robert Carlyle c R L I L E. Because 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:36.960 I don't want you to get him mixed up with 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:41.040 the character who is in Downton Abbey as a very 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.679 different character, although both of them were in the print business. Anyway, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:50.160 English authorities viewed Robert Carlyle as being dangerous or at 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.280 the very least a real nuisance, a thorn in their side. 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:56.920 And that's because, like I said, Carlisle was promoting these 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.800 dangerous ideas like women are human beings and therefore they 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.000 should have the same rights the men do, or that 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.200 the average poor person has just as many rights as 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:08.959 someone of the English nobility. These were not the sorts 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.880 of ideas and philosophies that the English authorities cared for, 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.880 but they are the ones that Carlisle believed in. And 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.120 he opened a bookshop that sold books and pamphlets about 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:25.280 these things and kind of spread and promoted these ideas 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.280 that the English government viewed as radical. So the government 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.680 was not keen on this at all, and they had 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.560 put into place some rather restrictive censorship laws. So if 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:40.000 you were found selling books about you know, this illegal 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:44.440 material and promoted these ideas that the government found distasteful 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:49.480 and disruptive, then you could be investigated and carted off 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.640 to jail. And Carlisle actually did get carted off to 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.440 jail a couple of times. His wife did too, in fact, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.360 because she took up his cause while her husband was 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.120 in prison. That this meant that their baby spent some 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.720 time in the houscal because she was pregnant when she 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.920 was arrested, and then delivered her baby while in prison. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.560 So Yauza. So Carlisle thought he had come up with 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:17.240 a fairly clever workaround for these British censorship laws that said, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:23.200 you know, it was illegal to sell this material to customers. 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.240 I don't know that the material itself was illegal, but 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.600 the act of selling it was. So he commissioned a 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:34.120 machine that would dispense books, a book vending machine. I 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:35.840 wish I could tell you how this machine worked, but 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.000 I could not dig up a description of the actual mechanisms, 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.600 if in fact there were any, But I do know 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.920 it worked from the point of the view of the customer. 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.880 So the idea is that you would walk up to 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:52.280 this machine, and the machine had a face on it, 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:54.760 kind of like a clock face with a dial in 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.400 the center as opposed to you know, hands of a clock, 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:03.160 and around the clockface would be titles of banned books, 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:08.560 and you could then turn the dial to the title 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.320 of the work that you were interested in. You would 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.640 PLoP in the appropriate coins into the coin slot, and 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.000 the machine would release a copy of the illegal material 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:22.200 into your hot little hands. And no human had actually 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.680 overseen the transaction, so thought Carlyle he had a loophole. 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:31.040 No one had actually sold the illegal material. It was 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:35.320 dispensed by a machine. The British authorities weren't having any 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.840 of it. While the history of English law has no 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.280 shortage of examples where someone was, on a technicality, able 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.920 to prove that they had only violated the spirit but 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.360 not the letter of the law, in Carlisle's case that 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.760 ended up being a non starter. The authorities agreed that 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.200 no human had sold the book at the moment of exchange, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.640 but they still would hold whomever loaded the machine with 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.400 copies of the works responsible for the sale. Carlisle didn't 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.840 give up on his support for freedom of the press 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.200 and equal rights, but he would pay for it time 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.240 and again with various stints in jail. And there's also, 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.160 you know, so little information on Carlisle's machine other than 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.679 the fact that it existed, that it's entirely possible it 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.920 was not automated at all. Instead, I mean, it's possible 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.280 it could have been essentially a mechanical turk. You might 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.320 remember the story of the mechanical Turk. A clever inventor 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.600 slash magician created this device that looked like it was 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:40.720 an automaton, but in fact was a gadget that was 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.879 puppeteered by someone who was hiding inside the workings of 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:49.119 the machine but was hidden from view, and so in 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.800 fact it wasn't an automated machine at all. It was 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:53.640 something that was under the control of a person. It's 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.119 possible that the same thing was going on with Carlisle's 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.680 quote unquote machine. That maybe there was just an employee 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.400 who paid attention to the dials setting and then upon 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.240 receiving the money, would just slide a book down a chute, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.840 and so it was just the appearance of a vending machine. 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.159 That's possible. I don't know the answer one way or 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:19.320 the other. All that being said, if you were to 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.280 flip ahead a century or so, because this was happening 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.880 in the in the nineteenth century, the mid nineteenth century 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:31.240 with Carlisle's book, that's how late those censorship laws were 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.800 taking effect. Well, if you were to go to the 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.880 twentieth century, then into the twenty first century, you would 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:42.560 find the biblio Matt. This is a vending machine, a 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.159 book vending machine that you can find in a bookstore 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.040 that's in Toronto, Canada. The bookstore is called the Monkey's 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:54.440 Paw and for the princely sum of a touney. A 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:59.240 toney is a two dollars Canadian coin. You can PLoP 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.080 a tuney in and out will come one of as 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:08.160 the machine proclaims, one hundred and twelve million titles, which 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:12.720 is very clever. Obviously, whatever is going to come out 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.680 is what has been loaded into the machine for that day. 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.760 But you know the joke being it could be anything 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:21.880 out of any of the books that have been published. 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.080 So what actually comes out is not up to you. 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.159 You don't get to choose. You just get whatever is next. 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.639 So you could end up with a really odd book. 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.399 You could end up with a rare edition of a book. 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:39.280 Some cases, maybe it's a biography about Lawrence Welk. The 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.880 owner of the shop loads the machine up with all 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.399 sorts of odds and ends. There's actually a great little 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:49.919 video on Vimeo showing the bibliomat in action. The added 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.719 bonus is that It also has Tom Waits's song Step 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.720 Right Up as part of the soundtrack, which is awesome. 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.440 The device itself is really clever. When it's activatd some 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.560 shelves inside the machine that are on a little pulley 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.960 system will move, so they get lifted up into place, 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:12.959 and in the process the shelves they can tilt, so 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.080 when they're pulled up far enough, the lip of the 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.840 shelf will catch in the machine and it will start 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.600 to tilt, and it tilts enough so that whatever volume 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.000 is on top will slide off and go down the 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.679 chute to the receptacle where the customer can pick up 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.600 and see whatever book it was that they just purchased. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:34.800 I love this idea. By the way, there are also 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:39.159 other really clever vending machines or repurposed vending machines that 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:44.360 dispense stuff like art and literature, and I love it 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.919 to me. It's one of those brilliant uses of technology. 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.240 It's a bit of a curiosity, but it leads to 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:54.880 delight and I think that's phenomenal. I'll talk about another 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:56.679 one before we get to the end of this episode, 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.240 but moving on, so now we're up to eighteen fifty 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.800 and we see another Englishman, this one named Simeon Denham, 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.480 who filed a patent for a device that he created 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:12.800 that was intended to dispense postage stamps. Denham's idea was 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.440 to locate these machines in places that had a lot 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.439 of foot traffic, like train stations, but were not necessarily 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.240 convenient to a post office, so you could easily buy 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.880 a stamp when you were near one of these machines, 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:27.840 not that different from the postage stamp machines that we 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.800 see today. In May of eighteen fifty eight, the newspaper 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:36.479 The Times published an article describing Denham's device, saying, quote, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.199 the instrument was intended for the delivery of postage or 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.760 other stamps singly to purchasers, so as to dispense, what 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.760 with the attendance of an official for this purpose at 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:51.640 post offices. A penny being put into a hole near 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.879 the top unlocks the instrument and allows a handle to 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.880 be used in such an extent as to protrude from 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:03.320 between two rollers a single stamp, which the purchaser tears off. 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.479 One stamp only can be had at a time, and 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:10.840 a haypenny or smaller coin is rejected pretty clever doesn't 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.919 go into the actual mechanics. Again. That is one of 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:18.239 the issues with a lot of these stories is that 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:20.600 you just hear that they were made, or at least 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.560 were designed, but you don't get a whole lot of 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.760 detail about the actual systems that were being used at 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:28.840 that point. This one, at least we got the rollers, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.040 which makes sense, Like the rollers put pressure and when 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:36.560 they move together extend a stamp. By controlling how far 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.399 the rollers can turn, you can make sure that it 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.560 only allows you access to a single stamp for the 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:44.280 amount of money you put in. Thus, so you can 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:48.520 control how many units the customer can get. That stuff 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:52.639 all makes sense, but it's the barest of details, right. Apparently, 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.680 the patent awarded to Denim is number seven hundred and six. 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:57.400 I tried to track it down so I could get 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.680 a better idea the working mechanism. All I could really 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.639 find were records where the patent would be stored in 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:07.600 physical form, and I'm not in England, so I can't 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:12.200 just pop over to the the respective library and dig 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:17.520 it up. According to several sources, Denim secured a provisional 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.959 patent but never pursued a full patent, so it is 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:24.440 also it's possible that this version of the vending machine 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.800 never got beyond the hey, you know what would be 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:31.720 a really good idea phase of invention that is more 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:35.800 common than I would care for. By the eighteen eighties, 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:41.080 things had gone beyond just good ideas, and engineers in 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:45.480 places like Germany and England began create creating actual early 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.560 vending machines. One in England created a vending machine designed 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:54.080 to either dispense envelopes and stamps, or you could choose 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:58.680 to purchase an already stamped postcard. In America, a guy 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:03.200 named W. H. Freud if r u E N file 0:24:03.240 --> 0:24:06.600 the patent for a device that, upon insertion of a coin, 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:11.320 would dispense some mineral water. I did look over that patent, 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:13.720 I could actually find that one, and I'm left with 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:17.919