Vending machine history
The first vending machine
The Egyptian mathematician, Heron of Alexandria, presented his invention in the first century AD: An automated sacred water dispenser. The water was contained in an urn with a slot on top of it. An inserted coin would hit a lever that would activate a piston making the water flow from a faucet until the coin fell to the bottom of the urn.
"Sacrificial Vessel which flows only when Money is introduced.
If into certain sacrificial vessels a coin of five drachms be thrown, water shall flow out and surround them. Let ABCD (fig. 21) be a sacrificial vessel or treasure chest, having an opening in its mouth, A; and in the chest let there be a vessel, F G H K, containing water, and a small box, L, from which a pipe, L M, conducts out of the chest. Near the vessel place a vertical rod, N X, about which turns a lever, 0 P, widening at 0 into the plate R parallel to the bottom of the vessel, while at the extremity P is suspended a lid, S, which fits into the box L, so that no water can flow through the tube L M : this lid, however, must be heavier than the plate H, but lighter than the plate and coin combined. When the coin is thrown through the mouth A, it will fall upon the plate H and, preponderating, it will turn the beam 0 P, and raise the lid of the box so that the water will flow: but if the coin falls off; the lid will descend and close the box so that the discharge ceases.
(source: THE PNEUMATICS OF HERO OF ALEXANDRIA FROM THE ORIGINAL GREEK TRANSLATED FOR AND EDITED BY BENNET WOODCROFT PROFESSOR OF MACHINERY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, chapter 21) "
Vending machines throughout history:
Seventeenth century England saw the appearance of vending machines dispensing snuff tobacco. In the nineteenth century, a bookstore owner, Richard Carlile, developed a machine to distribute forbidden books. Since he wasn’t directly selling the books himself, he could not be prosecuted.
In the twentieth century, stamps, cigarettes, beverages … were the first products to be sold in an automated machine.
References:
http://www.eurekaweb.free.fr/vh1-distributeur_automatique.htm
