[LINK] CSIRO Second Life Island?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 08:35 AM 26/09/2007, Tom Worthington wrote:
>Of course this is not the first robot on the Internet. In 1994 Ken 
>Taylor demonstrated control of a robot in Perth from Canberra:

I liked the remote coke machine monitor that the guys at MIT 
developed. It's still going: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/htbin/coke
Oops! History was much farther back and at Carnegie-Mellon in 
Pittsburgh in the 1970s!:
http://www.rajivshah.com/Case_Studies/Finger/Finger.htm#_ednref15

V.  Alternative uses for Finger

Information Retrieval

"Using this dandy little tool, among other things, I've found 
earthquake updates; a directory that lists which sodas are available 
in certain soda machines at Columbia University and Carnegie Mellon 
University, and National Football League standings."[14]

             An interesting use of the Finger command was done at 
Carnegie-Mellon University in the 1970s.  It involved wiring up a 
Coke machine to sense how many bottles were present of various 
flavors inside the machine.  Next a program was written that allowed 
the status of the Coke machine to be determined by the use of the 
Finger command, Finger coke at cmua.[15]

             Plan files were the old home of ASCII art.  Plans 
contain varied individualized information. For example, favorite 
quotes, ASCII art, and marketing information could be in a plan 
file.  It was a precursor to the world wide web home page.[16]


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Living, like writing, requires no wisdom. Only revising does. - Jim 
Sollisch, Sept, 2007

Writing Lesson #78: In writing, 'do overs' are a 'good thing' -- and 
a requirement. - JW, Sept, 2007

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for 
guests. - JW, May, 2007

'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
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