Re:The first network-enabled vending machine (Score 1)

It was in fact Babbage who attached a refluxing "hot beverage apparatus" using hand crafted "Ada" code to interface to the Difference Engine (TM) to transmit coffee availability to remote sites using the British Navy optical semaphore network. It is of course worthy of note that all Babbage's engines had many cams. It is also noted by the IEEE http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/websights/web 07-10-00.html that the ZX81 was the first (and British) computer to be designed to survive coffee being spilt over it -- not so, both the Analytic amd Difference Engines where SPECIFICALLY designed in brass to withstand the application of hot and corrosive liguids by enemy insurgents. Other fascinating insites into the technology of the time include: submarine control http://www.granta.demon.co.uk/cf/cf7.html; steamn modems (from Iowa? shum mhistake shurely), http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Collections/AOL /Hardware.Libraries/AHW.081594; coding examples, http://www.allafrica.co.za/archives/001113.htm. For Great Justice, Eric.