Without a doubt, 'dispense' is the single most important programme to live at the UCC. Over the years it has mutated from a simple way to get drinks from the drinks machine to a vital UCC accounting, network services and even password and username checking system.
The UCC drinks machine does not accept money. To get drink out of it you must first get some ''Coke Credit'' into your account40. The normal method of doing this is to yell ''Is anyone in the Coke group here?'' in the clubroom. Assuming someone says "Yes!", you can ask them to put some credit into your account. They will take your money or ask you to put it into the UCC cashbox. In the latter case, get one of the plastic bags from a box on top of the filing cabinet, put your money in the bag and tell the Coke group member the amount and the bag number before putting it into the marked receptacle.
Type 'dispense' at a prompt on morwong, mussel or mermaid. This will bring up a menu of what's currently available. along with your current account balance. Use the arrow keys to move up or down, or type in the number of what you'd like. Presssing the return or enter key will dispense whatever the arrow is pointing to, and pressing the escape key or 'q' will quit.
If you dispensed a drink, you should hear the machine in action within a few seconds. You can then pick up your chosen can.
If you know what you want, you can bypass the menus and type ''dispense drinkname'' for the first thing with a name starting with the letters in drinkname. The system isn't perfect, and there can be problems. Sometimes, it may just be slow. Other times the drink machine itself will stop working. Keep an eye on your account--mistakes or software problems have given people the wrong balances on many occasions. If in doubt, you can examine the logs on the system--ask someone in Coke group for help.
Type 'man dispense' for more information.
You'll notice that in the bottom half of the dispense menu there are other choices. These let you pay for non-food items, conveniently, with your credit. If you make a call to somewhere outside of the University from the club telephone, for example, you should dispense a 'phone' to pay for the call. If you print something on a clubroom laser printer, you should dispense a 'laserprint' for each page.
Apart from your deliberate use of the dispense command you may accrue incidental charges for services such as incoming network traffic. Network traffic charges are automatically deducted from your account. If automatic deductions remove all funds from your account you will be sent an emailed notification. See the remote access section for more information about network traffic charges.