Did You Know? Vending Machines Existed In Ancient Greece 2000 Years Ago
Why does the Greek always invent everything? 🏛️
The most underappreciated Greek genius in history is probably Hero of Alexandria. He was a mathematician and engineer. He made things, but people didn’t really care. You get it, like Flint. 🍝
Nope, it wasn’t the Japanese. He actually invented the first steam engine, the first wind machine in history. And of course, the vending machine.
So the first vending machine was coin-operated, which is how most of the vending machines nowadays work. Duh. These ancient ones, however, didn’t dispense candy and snacks. Instead, the first vending machine gave out holy water.🚰 Of course, who doesn’t want divine, God-blessed water?
It was called The Hero Holy Water Dispenser™. It ran on a lever and simple physics. What’s remarkable is its idea of rewarding a product by tossing a coin. This system gave birth to what we know today as vending machines.
There seems to be only one major variation in its development of over 2,000 years — an extra claw. The invention of claw machines now is like gambling. You just have to toss enough coins to play the game and figure out how to grab those sneaky prizes.
We probably barely see them after Toy Story in 1995. The claw was the god. This idea must be like a hoax to ancient Greeks. All the Greek people like: we paid our money, why is nothing happening?
Check out the holy water dispenser down below. We really dug out some artifacts and made sure our interpretation was legit. Damn, we did a good job. Time to confess. The very first steam engine that we mentioned Hero design was actually more like a toy. It doesn’t really help production-wise, and it could only poof out some smoke like Mushu.
Like automatic doors or robots, most of his inventions were designed with a mid to show off more than practical use. You know, gotta make sure the rituals are glamorous. Maybe that’s why textbook material never mentioned this guy, but he should’ve been an inspiration for the production crew at America’s Got Talent instead.
