"The earliest known
reference to a vending machine is in the work of Hero of Alexandria, a first-century engineer and mathematician. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed holy water. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counterweight snapped the lever up and turned off the valve......." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vending_machine)
Sounds like something Father Comstock would have endorsed .... Never can have enough Holy Water (or coins)
Stolen technology :
It would have been amusing to see a Circus of Values or El Ammo Bandito machine (or even a lonely Rapture Tribune machine) in Columbia since they seem to have stolen so many other things. At least in Finks place where they, if anything, have them there (in pieces?) trying to reverse-engineeer them.
75.36.142.143 15:28, February 16, 2014 (UTC)
Backlash[]
Particularly with the anthromorphic elements of these machines that there might have been a luddite backlash at their not only stealing work from the small business owners, but them being 'soulless' machines not fitting to be in the 'new' Eden of Columbia.
75.36.143.15 22:45, May 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Modern vending machines have existed as early as the 1880s and there was no "luddite backlash" then. Luddites destroy machines that they fear are threatening their jobs. All a vending machine actually does is take an object off a shelf, basically. The people of Columbia were happy to have mechanizations serve them, they were happy to be served by anyone/thing they viewed as beneath them including minorities. It was the idea of an equal citizen being combined with machinery that "lowered" someone like Samuel Gerst.
- Also User 75.36.14... AKA User:Testxyz, you've been on this site long enough to know how it works. Go to a Talk Page, Click "Add a Topic," and then write out a Section Headline. Otherwise all you've done is cluttered the Talk Page with a string of comments with no topic and no way to organize them. It's not hard.
- Unownshipper (talk) 03:57, May 9, 2016 (UTC)
- Earliest vending machines were for things like postcards - extremely simple (and cheap), and usually were in spots where small manned vending kiosks were not. Thats alot less than the clothings/gear vendings or pharmaceuticals and other more complex things we see in Columbia. Likewise these complex shape decorated machines (3D human) are well beyond the flatness (look at any old photos, even halfway through the last century) as are alot of the bizaarely HUGE signs on the HUGE buildings.
- 75.36.143.211 05:05, May 9, 2016 (UTC)