The Cybercafe time registration project:

How it starded


It all started with one computer at a student bar called wolweze.
This computer was connected to the internet with a ISDN modem, back in 1997 I think. After a while we
noticed the students liked the idea of having access to the net at their pub.

So we decided to continue the exploitation of this internet connection. And got a second computer.
We let them share a ISDN connection with a program ( I forgot the name). And made a device that accepted
money and in return this device connected the monitor to the mains for some time.
As time ran out the device simply disconnected the monitor.

We thought disconnecting the monitor was the best way because disconnecting mouse and keyboard would give
boot problems with ms windows.

As we started making a little money with this setup, we decided to make thing better.
I got hold of a electronic coin selector, played with it a while when I got it to work. At this time we had upgraded the
computers to some degree and there was space, time and money for a third. No we needed a neat and stable
money-time registration gadget.

Read here how I did it.

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