Pinball

Pinball is a type of arcade game, usually coin-operated, in which points are scored by a player manipulating one or more steel balls on a play field inside a glass-covered cabinet called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Points are earned when the ball strikes different targets on the play field. A drain is situated at the bottom of the play field, partially protected by player-controlled plastic bats called flippers. A game ends after all the balls fall into the drain. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning "extra balls" and keeping the ball in play as long as possible) and to earn bonus games (known as "replays").

History

Pre-modern: Development of outdoor and tabletop ball games

The origins of pinball are intertwined with the history of many other games. Games played outdoors by rolling balls or stones on a grass course, such as bocce or bowls, eventually evolved into various local ground billiards games played by hitting the balls with sticks and propelling them at targets, often around obstacles. Croquet, golf and paille-maille eventually derived from ground billiards variants.

Machine

A machine is a tool containing one or more parts that uses energy to perform an intended action. Machines are usually powered by mechanical, chemical, thermal, or electrical means, and are often motorized. Historically, a power tool also required moving parts to classify as a machine. However, the advent of electronics has led to the development of power tools without moving parts that are considered machines.

A simple machine is a device that simply transforms the direction or magnitude of a force, but a large number of more complex machines exist. Examples include vehicles, electronic systems, molecular machines, computers, television, and radio.

Etymology

The word machine derives from the Latin word machina, which in turn derives from the Greek (Doric μαχανά makhana, Ionic μηχανή mekhane "contrivance, machine, engine", a derivation from μῆχος mekhos "means, expedient, remedy").

A wider meaning of "fabric, structure" is found in classical Latin, but not in Greek usage.

This meaning is found in late medieval French, and is adopted from the French into English in the mid-16th century.

Vending machine

A vending machine is a machine that dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets to customers automatically, after the customer inserts currency or credit into the machine. The first modern vending machines were developed in England in the early 19th century and dispensed postcards.

History

The earliest known reference to a vending machine is in the work of Hero of Alexandria, a first-century AD Greek engineer and mathematician. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed holy water. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counterweight snapped the lever up and turned off the valve.

Coin-operated machines that dispensed tobacco were being operated as early as 1615 in the taverns of England. The machines were portable and made of brass. An English bookseller, Richard Carlile, devised a newspaper dispensing machine for the dissemination of banned works in 1822. Simeon Denham was awarded British Patent no. 706 for his stamp dispensing machine in 1867, the first fully automatic vending machine.