Ticket Machines

A vending machine is a machine that dispenses merchandise when a customer deposits sufficient money into a slot or vent to purchase the desired item (as opposed to a shop, where the presence of personnel is required for every purchase). more...

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The money (usually coins) is validated by a currency detector. It is believed to have been first invented by Hero of Alexandria, a 1st century inventor. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed a fixed amount of holy water.

Introduction

In the United States, vending machines generally serve the purpose of selling snacks and beverages, but are also common in busy locations to sell newspapers. Another common class of vending machines are photo booths.

Items sold via vending machine vary by country. For example, some countries sell alcoholic beverages such as beer through vending machines, while other countries do not allow this (usually because of dram shop laws). Cigarettes were commonly sold in the U.S. through these machines, but this practice is increasingly rare due to concerns about underaged buyers. Sometimes a pass has to be inserted in the machine to prove one's age. In some European countries, by contrast, cigarette machines remain common.

Oddly, during the 1950s, life insurance policies were sold through vending machines at airports, but this practice disappeared due to the tendency of American courts to strictly construe such policies against their sellers.

Mechanism

After paying, a product may become available by:

releasing it, so that it falls in an open compartment at the bottom, or in a cup, either released first, or put by the customer; unlocking a door, drawer, turning knob, etc.;

Sometimes the product is not just released, but prepared; this may be the case e.g. in the case of coffee, French fries, or a ticket that is printed after paying.

Vending machine giving access to all merchandise

The main example of a vending machine giving access to all merchandise after paying for one item is a newspaper vending machine (also called vending box). It contains a pile of identical newspapers. After a sale the door automatically returns to a locked position. A customer could open the box and take all of the newspapers or, for the benefit of other customers, leave all of the newspapers outside of the box, slowly return the door to an unlatched position, or block the door from fully closing. The success of such machines is predicated on the assumption that the customer will be honest (hence the nickname "honor box"), which is helped by the fact that having more than one newspaper is not often useful.

Compare a coin-operated pay toilet.

Read more at Wikipedia.org