History of the Early Vending Machine and Design

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2. Literature review
An early vending machine is invented by Hero of Alexandria, a first-century engineer and mathematician [1]. In 1876, Simeon Denham built a vending machine dispensing stamps called “the first fully automatic vending machine”. A modern coin-operated vending machine was first introduced in London in 1883 by Percival Everitt. After that, vending machines have become well-known and been widely used in England.
The following is details about background knowledge related to the design of the vending machine.
2.1 Truth Tables [2]

Figure 2.1: An example of truth table.
Truth tables are a kind of table for describing the set of result for each alternative set of inputs. Using the truth table will help designers to write Boolean expressions more easily. An example of the truth table can be found at Figure 2.3. The output V will be one if two or three of the inputs are one.

2.2 Gates [2]
A gate is a primitive building box which describes Boolean expressions. Standard logic gates are gates for the logic operators AND, OR and NOT (Figure 2.2). These gates are formed from transistor switches. Every Boolean expression can be implemented by wiring a combination of gates together. The AND operator is a “multiply” in Boolean expressions, OR operator is a “plus” or “+”, and NOT is an “inverse” or “~”. The Boolean expression V = ~ (((A*B) + (~C)) * D) can be implemented as Figure 2.3.

Figure 2.2: Standard logic gates. Figure 2.3: An implemented of V = ~ (((A*B) + (~C)) * D)
2.3 A Digital Clock Signal

Figure 2.4 [2]: A Digital Clock Signal
Figure 2.4 shows A Digital clock signal used for synchronize different part of circuit. It has only two values, high and low. A word, “clock” used in this report means the...

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...bove, it can be concluded that the designed vending machine is able to provide a function for the buyer to purchase more than one product at a time. In contrast, current vending machines sell only one. If the buyer wants to purchase more than one product, he needs to put the change back into the machine before the next purchasing order. This is time-wasting. The designed vending machine can solve this problem. After testing, the machine seems to save the purchasing time when a customer wants to buy more than one product from the machine. In addition, the vending machine can operate 24 hours a day, so the buyer can purchase products even at midnight when all nearby retailers are already closed. Also, using a vending machine can save the cost of hiring workers and save more space since it is smaller than a block of retail store and do not need to be observed by humans.

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