[Ads-l] ATM = Vending Machine

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Japan is famous for having a wide variety of vending machines. I found
a message in a forum that referred to a "ramen ATM", i.e., a
vending-type machine for ramen noodles. The date on the forum post was
2005. Since the date was on the website itself the accuracy is
uncertain. Someone created a Wayback Machine snapshot, but the
snapshot date is 2015 (rather late).

I looked at some articles and YouTube videos about automated systems
for ordering ramen noodles. It seems that older systems enable a
customer to order and purchase the noodles. However, the noodles are
not cooked within the vending machine. Instead, the customer is given
a ticket which is relayed to a cook who creates the noodle dish in a
conventional restaurant kitchen. Full-fledged ramen noodle vending
machines exist, but I do not know when they were introduced.

The term "ramen ATM" is surrounded by quotation marks in the excerpt below.

Forum Website: mouthfulsfood.com
Forum Participant: Orik
Message Timestamp on Website: 13 July 2005 - 09:33 PM
Topic: Tokyo Restaurants

http://mouthfulsfood.com/forums/index.php/topic/4314-tokyo-restaurants/page-2

[Begin excerpt]
I think they had an English menu. In some Ramen shops you make your
purchase using a "ramen ATM", which is normally in Japanese only. You
can try and memorize the letters for the differnt types, or you can
use prices from www.worldramen.net as reference (typically each item
is priced differently).
[End excerpt]

Here is a link to the Wayback Machine snapshot of October 4, 2015
https://web.archive.org/web/20151004143532/http://mouthfulsfood.com/forums/index.php/topic/4314-tokyo-restaurants/page-2

Here is a link to a website about a "Pizza ATM". The phrase is a
registered trademark.
http://pizzaatmllc.com/

Here is another somewhat recent example:

Article: Food ATMs Could Be The Evolution Of Fast Food
Date: February 10, 2017
Author: Curiosity Staff
https://curiosity.com/topics/food-atms-could-be-the-evolution-of-fast-food-curiosity/

[Begin excerpt]
What if instead of getting a dry bag of pretzels out of a vending
machine, you could get a juicy hamburger? If this is what your
gluttonous dreams are made of, you're in luck. Fast food is getting
even faster as it moves towards unmanned ATMs for cupcakes, pizza, and
other delights.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 6:04 AM David Metevia <djmetevia at chartermi.net> wrote:
>
> An interesting use of ATM in a recent Atlas Obscura post (
> https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/worlds-first-salmon-atm):
>
> "In January of 2019, a new ATM was unveiled in Singapore’s Wisteria
> shopping mall. Instead of cash, however, this machine dispenses 200-gram
> fillets of frozen salmon from the fjords of Norway. Today, dozens of salmon
> ATMs dot the island city-state."
>
> Further,
> "The company decided on Singapore because of the country’s vending-machine
> culture (Singaporean machines vend everything from ice cream to luxury
> cars) and affection for Norwegian salmon
> <https://www.intrafish.com/marketplace/1792764/meet-the-man-behind-the-norwegian-salmon-atms>.
> "
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org