It was largely designed by Bret Victor while he was an undergraduate. It had its own operating system! You can find the documentation here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20080229205618&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.caltech.edu&#x2F;~bret&#x2F;coke&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20080229205618&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.cal...</a><p>The vending machine would occasionally be replaced so students had to create new hacks from scratch, but none of them were nearly as impressive as that one. During my undergrad, its only feature was a &quot;random soda&quot; button. More recently, it had a space cut out of the front panel which housed a flatscreen monitor so you could surf the web on it while eating your lunch, but nothing was hooked up to the vending machine&#x27;s control system.<p>I guess we were more inventive before we had the modern internet.