Automats were a short-lived, but interesting development.
The first time I became aware that such a thing had existed was in the movie "Dark City" - which is spectacularly good. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it 😉
https://www.untappedcities.com/automats-cafeterias-nyc/
Great video, explains exactly how people learned gradually how to build better defenses - each element was the result of discovering and fixing weaknesses:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ojFAO7UWYkw
Amazingly, the design evolved very little...
The original goal was to allow customers to buy more than they could carry in their shopping baskets.
While this might lead some people to buy more than they would have, to me personally, it means that i have to make fewer trips to supermarket over the same time period and I'm pretty sure that this is true for most people.
Yes, it's an AI generated video, but frankly very cool. If there ever was a good use for AI videos, this is it. It's fascinating to see how computers changed, generation after generation... it's soon going to be 100 years since the very first computer. 50 years since the first micro-computer!
I hate the fact that all of those great ideas on how to make the tool-less assembly of a PC never made it into the mainstream 😡
There are so many great ideas that could make a significant difference since the 1970s and they just disappeared.
Take my all-time favorite keyboard,...See more