Coke Manual page
NAME
coke
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes how to use the on-line Coke machine at the
University of Wisconsin - Madison. Operation is through a simple
menu-driven interface that nonetheless allows sophisticated features to be
implemented. The following sections start with the basics of getting an
account and then move on to the more snazzy features on the machine.
Most of this stuff can be quickly understood without the use of this page,
but it seems useful to have it all written down somewhere.
GETTING AN ACCOUNT AND LOGGING IN
To get an account you need to talk to one of the people whose names are
given on the Coke machine itself. You need to tell them the login you wish
to use on the coke machine, your electronic mail address for automated coke
mailings, and the amount of money you want placed in your account. You
will also have to give a password, similar to the ones used to log in and
out of a UNIX machine. When your account is installed you will recieve
electronic mail.
To use the account you go to the machine, and at the
Coke Id:
prompt, you enter the login you gave the administrator when you got the
account and hit return. It's usually the same as your account login. Then
you will be asked for a password in a blanked out area. Type it and hit
return. Now you will be presented with a menu.
BUYING A DRINK
To buy a drink you choose menu choice 1 by typing the numeral 1 after the
Enter Option:
prompt and hit return. Now you press the flavor you want on the Coke
machine, just as if you've put money in a standard Coke machine, and get
your drink. Notice that choice 1 is
Buy a beverage and exit
, so it logs you out as well. If you want to buy one and stay logged on,
choose 2, labelled
Buy a beverage and stay
logged on.
If you do this be sure to logout when you're done by using choice 8,
Exit.
PASSWORDS
To change your password, choose option 5,
Change password.
You'll be prompted for a password in a blanked out area. You'll enter the
password twice, and if they are the same, the change will be recorded. If
you forget your password, contact one of the people authorized to give out
accounts, and they will change it to something known.
Just like your real accounts, you should change your password frequently
and pick good ones. If you don't know what a good one is, you can ask one
of the Coke account people, or read
UNIX Operating System Security," by
F.T. Gramp and R. H. Morris in AT&T Bell Labratories Technical Journal
63(8) pp 1649-1672 (October 1984),
which has a good section on it.
GIVING MONEY AWAY
This is a feature new to the current version of the software. What it
allows you to do is to give some of your Coke account money to another
user. This is handy if you want to loan a friend some of your balance, or
pay someone back for buying you a beverage. To do it, just choose number 3,
Transfer funds to another user
and enter the user's coke login and the amount to give when you're prompted
for it. No you can't give someone more money than you have. Nice try
though.
LOW BALANCE NOTIFICATION
Yet another new feature in the coke software is the ability of the machine
to let you know when your balance goes below a given figure. To use this
feature choose 6,
Change mailing information
and be sure that the address is your Email address. Then decide what you
think a low balance is, and set the low water mark to that number. Now
whenever your balance goes from being above that amount to being below it
you will receive a brief mail message telling you that. By default
everyone's low water mark is zero, so if you don't touch it, you'll never
be bothered with the mail. Another way to eliminate automatic mailings is
to change your mailing address to "none".
CLOSING NOTES
We've done our best to make the system secure and easy to use. If you find
that there is a problem with the system that makes it either easy to break
or hard to use please let Ted Faber know as
soon as possible.
Try to exercise good sense with your Coke account. Don't give your
password out unnessecarily, and change it often. Pay attention to your
balance, and if you see something strange, let the Coke people know. We
have been going for some time with this arrangement without any major
hassles, and we hope it will continue.
And, as always, we thank you for your support.
AUTHORS
Ted Faber wrote the software
Jeff Hollingsworth designed and built the hardware