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Citation Needed

Coin Operated Machines

Citation Needed

Citation Needed Media

Society & Culture, Comedy

4.82.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A vending machine is an automated machine that dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or payment is otherwise made.[1] The first modern vending machines were developed in England in the early 1880s and dispensed postcards. Vending machines exist in many countries and, in more recent times, specialized vending machines that provide less common products compared to traditional vending machine items have been created.

An arcade game, or coin-op game, is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers.[1]

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to citation needed.

0:25.2

The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts.

0:30.0

Is this the internet?

0:31.1

That's how it works now.

0:32.3

I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'll be the first quarter in the jukebox tonight, but I'll need some jump change to help keep the rhythm going. Tom, Cecil, and Noah. I think I've proven this chump will change. That's fair. Well, and Heath isn't here tonight, so I guess I'll have to be the quarter that awkwardly plays the same song that just played because he didn't realize it was already in the queue. Oh, yeah, we hate that. He hate that. Before you begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Patrons, thanks to the thick, rusty nickels you press into our slots. The gears of this old goofs machine that keep on a turning. So tell us, Noah, what person plays the concept? Bonnet? Sometimes it's a poem. It doesn't always have a poem. Okay. Yeah. It's in the blood. Yeah. Thank you. So tell us, Noah, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event we'll we be talking about today. So, yeah, so I figured after my last controversial essay about the exploits of Queen and Zinga, it would be good to stick with a safe topic that everybody can agree is deeply interesting and weaves a natural narrative, the history of coin operated machines.

1:38.0

Oh, my God.

1:38.6

If we want people to stop listening, we can just make the show my blog.

1:42.6

It's a time-tested strategy.

1:45.7

So tell us. Yeah, there's no episodes.

1:49.8

On hiatus. So tell us, Noah, why this particular flavor of old man perversion tonight?

1:56.9

Okay. I can't help it. I have a deep fascination with all the technology that dies in my lifetime.

2:04.0

Also, this was one of those weeks where I was like super busy and I had to just talk about something I already knew about.

2:11.0

All right.

2:11.9

So, I mean, this feels weird to ask, but what are coin operated machines?

2:18.4

There are machines that operate with coins, you dumbass i'm just saying my kids have no idea yeah right right right exactly

2:24.8

yeah i guarantee to gen z here so the first known coin operated machine dates all the way back

2:31.2

to the first century possibly the year six six, seven, we don't know,

2:35.4

when Hero of Alexandria devised a machine that would dispense a predetermined amount of

2:40.9

holy water when a coin was inserted. Because apparently taken more than your fair share of

2:45.6

holy water was such a big problem. They had to bring in the engineers about it. The machine

2:50.7

was pretty simple. You would drop a coin in. It would hit a pan, and then the weight of the engineers about it. The machine was pretty simple.

2:51.3

You would drop a coin in. It would hit a pan. And then the weight of the coin would tip the pan,

...

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