Hacking Soda Machines

by MeGaBiTe1 (megabite1@hotmail.com)

     After reading a letter in 21:1 on vending machines, I decided to so some
research into this topic.  Soda machines, to be specific.  What really goes
on behind the six-foot tall picture of a Mello Yello bottle?

     First of all, I'd like to say that this has been tested by myself and
others in the U.S.  I don't know how much soda machines in other countries 
differ from those in the States.

     Most aspects of these machines can only be accessed from the inside by
the refill guy, but any passerby with the right knowledge can look through a
DEBUG menu that is present on any Coke machine with a LCD display.

     To get into this menu, you must enter the button sequence 4-2-3-1.  On
machines where the buttons are aligned vertically, the first button in the
column is 1, second is 2, etc.  Doing this should display some text on the LCD
(sometimes "EROR", sometimes "CASH").

     Once in the menu, there are multiple options you can select.  To navigate
within the DEBUG menu, use these buttons:
	
	1 - Back
	2 - Up
	3 - Down
	4 - Select

     Now on to the nitty-gritty of each option.

     CASH - This option lets you see how much money is in the machine.
You can also scroll through it to see how much money has been spent on each
type of soda, ordered by their button number.

     EROR - May be some soft of area to log errors.  In my personal
experience, every machine has displayed the text NONE when I selected EROR.

     RTN - An option used to return or exit the DEBUG menu.  It is
not found on newer machines.

     VER - Probably used to display the OS version.

     SALE - Displays the number of sodas sold.  This option can be 
navigated in the same fashion as CASH.

     Well, that's about it for now.  If you're wondering, "Can I get free sodas
from this menu?" the answer is 'no.'  It would be plain stupid for Code to
design their machines to dispense free sodas with a combination of publicly
available buttons.  There is probably a lot more to find out about these
aluminum spitting beasts, so have fun.  Also, check to see what model machine
you're using (it should say on the back).  A quick Google search may reveal
some manuals or info.

Shouts to Xeon, Spency, CyberHigh, Harlequin, Dave, and all the people at
scriptriders.org and jinxhackwear.com.