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Aucbvax.1911 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!Andrew.Reiner@CMU-10A Wed Jun 24 06:59:27 1981 Re: coin-op computing In 1975, one Harold Shair installed a genuine coin-operated personal computer in the White Plains public library in White Plains, New York. If I remember correctly, the machine was a Wang 2200. At any rate, it spoke basic, and had cassette tape secondary storage, and you could either buy your own tape (available at a nominal charge at the reference desk), or borrow application & game tapes from the library's collection. The machine was outfitted with a car-wash style coinbox which gave you ~5 minutes of computing for $.25. It accepted up to n quarters at a time, allowing the user n*5 minutes of uninteruppted hacking. What Shair had done was wire the coinbox into the video display circuitry, so that the display blanked when your time ran out. The processor and memory were unaffected, so you could either drop in another quarter, or write your tape and go home. Shair was also, to my knowledge, the first entrepreneur to install coin-op electronic calculators in a public place, a decade or so ago. He currently owns a sucessful chain of computer stores in the NY area.

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