New Mars Forums

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Automats on Mars - aka "Push Nickels"

*Okay, so I'm being a bit fanciful.  Have seen these in a few "period" films, etc.:

http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/automat … t.htm]Horn & Hardart's Automat

Was reminded of this again in an article in a favorite magazine of mine, Reminisce.  One elderly lady recalled eating at the H & H Automat as a child, which she and her family called "Push Nickels" instead.

Anyway, would be cool to have a set-up like this on Mars...or anywhere.  The article in the magazine said the last of the automats closed in 1991.  Dang, I could have visited it! 

Dicktice, if you read this, did you ever eat at an automat?

--Cindy

p.s. -- guess I'd better mention this would be cool as a cafeteria setup; I'm not interested in setting up corporations on Mars.

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

srmeaney

Member

From: 18 tiwi gdns rd, TIWI NT 0810

Registered: 2005-03-18

Posts: 976

Re: Automats on Mars - aka "Push Nickels"

AKA Dark City...Automat scene.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,825

Re: Automats on Mars - aka "Push Nickels"

As a kid growing up, there were films shown to us of the future and how meals would be available at the touch of a button. Nowadays these are the frozen TV dinner and the food vending machines amoung others. With all sorts or varieties of fine foods to partake of.

Cobra Commander

Member

From: The outskirts of Detroit.

Registered: 2002-04-09

Posts: 3,039

Re: Automats on Mars - aka "Push Nickels"

I wouldn't mind seeing fast-food places start going this way. They already make everything beforehand, it already sits for an undetermined length of time under heat lamps, why not do so in a cabinet that the customer can remove it from themselves, thereby skipping the vacant-stared epsilon giving you the wrong stuff step?

Between that and those automated checkout lanes (which would be much better if they didn't talk) a person could probably go for weeks at a time without speaking to a single real human being face to face. 

For Mars I could see it working, lots of pre-made foodstuffs on little shelves in communal space. A cafeteria without staff, except for the poor shlub that keeps the shelves stocked. A chow line without surly cooks.

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Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.