Stalking the Cambridge Coffee Pot
By Nancy Eichorn
I'm following a complete stranger down a dark alley in an unfamiliar city to a place I'm not even sure exists. I'm a bit leery, but I trust my gut instincts, and this time they lead me past the Zoology Department off Downing Street in Cambridge, England. The world's most famous coffee maker is percolating somewhere in the computer department, and I'm driven to find out where and, more importantly, why it deserves its own web site. Call me crazy. I mean, I don't even drink coffee. So why, in a city famous for the harmonious voices of the Boy's Choir echoing off the vaulted ceilings of King's College Chapel, the 45 acres of botanical gardens replete with lakes and lush greenhouses, the Backs and the River Cam, do I want to see a coffee maker?
Because it's an unknown.
I know people who travel to new places and seek familiarity. They see what others have seen. They follow guidebooks and travel agents' advice. In France see the Eiffel Tower. In England see the Tower of London. In Germany see the Glockenspiel. I too have followed paths trampled smooth by previous footsteps. I've ridden tourist-filled buses bound to pre-printed itineraries. My photo albums display snapshots of Lego Land, Michelangelo's David, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace. But I also have a picture of the Great Pyramid at Giza taken from the rear. I arrived, galloping astride a white Arabian stallion, across the Sahara Desert. My tourist perspective changed that afternoon. Staring at the back of the pyramid, with no one else in sight, I felt the awesomeness of the structure's sheer size. I thought about the crafters who assembled this massive three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. I thought about the maze within-secret chambers and dead-end routes designed to protect the pharaoh's riches from tomb robbers. Abstract thoughts filled my mind as I sat alone on this desert plateau, surrounded by blue skies and golden grains of sun-warmed sand. I realized that day that traveling does more than open doors to exotic locales; it paves the way for self-awareness.
I no longer sign up for bus rides where someone else determines what is significant. Now I find my own way. And sometimes it takes the assistance of a passing stranger to make it happen. So I've asked this tall, thin gent, who could easily hide beside one of the wrought iron street lamps cemented along the cobblestone road, if he knows where the university's computer department is located. He rubs his chin, then replies, "Yes. I'll show you." We pass between soot-stained stone walls and a parking lot's tubular gate.
Beyond a blue plastic dumpster crammed full of cardboard boxes and plastic strapping, we turn left and scoot between three metal poles. He opens a glass door and pushes the elevator button. "Reception is on the second floor," he says, then departs.
I landed here because of a map: "Cambridge, the Complete Guide," a bargain at £1.30 from the Tourist Information Centre on Wheeler Street. It offers the usual mappish information: street names, tourist sites, accommodations, group tours, public toilets and shopping centers. But the last entry on the list of Internet sites reads: "and of course, if you want to see how much is left in the famous coffee machine, or if you want to learn more about it, visit: www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html."My mind clicked. What coffee machine? Why is it famous? Did Darwin drink from it? Perhaps Frances Crick or John Venn shared scientific pontifications while drinking a mug of Colombian coffee. Maybe it brewed six bean varieties in separate chambers simultaneously? What else might be worthy of such grand distinction?
The journalist in me is often taken with tales others find unremarkable. So, doing what I do best, I asked questions. The woman at the tourist information center hadn't a clue, but my clue came from the map she sold me. She asked her colleagues and learned that the University of Cambridge's Computer Department has a coffee machine and for some reason it is famous. She offered me the phone number and pointed out on my new map the department's location. She assured me it was just around the corner, "a short walk, really."
I might have called or logged onto the website. But I'm a woman of action, of interaction. I make my way dealing directly with people, so much so that a friend often admonishes, "You can't follow every lead." He worries that I don't anticipate possible disasters. But I've endured enough scrapes and bruises to know I'm not immune to pain. I recognize the risks, but my need to discover snowplows past my fear.
Claire, the Computer Department receptionist, isn't aware of a famous coffee maker, but after a few inquiries she returns to say that a gentleman will arrive momentarily to escort me to the machine. I envision a creation to rival Willy Wonka's wildest chocolate contraption. I see cups of steaming coffee jostling down an assembly line. No more queues for a cup of Joe. Just push a button and POP! Out comes a non-fat, mocha latte topped with a dollop of whipped cream. Coffee cafés will be mechanized, revolutionized… Daniel Gordon, a 32-year-old university research assistant, appears.
His short brown hair fits his face, a scholarly cut. He wears a white shirt with faded blue stripes, casual slacks and brown loafers. He greets me, then leads me up three flights of stairs, around numerous corners and past a jumble of cardboard cartons to the Trojan Room: the named is printed in bold black letters above the door. Daniel pulls open the heavy wooden door and guides me between computers stacked like the stones lining the walls outside. Lights blink red, green, yellow, on battleship gray consoles. Then I see it. Poised on the fourth shelf of a cheap metal bookshelf sits a Krupps ProAroma coffee maker on a black metal tray painted with pink carnations. A Philips camera, reminiscent of the old black-box movie cameras long since replaced by video camcorders, trains its eye on the scene. A 60-watt light bulb surrounded by blue paper beams a spotlight on the star-a half-full glass carafe of coffee.
Rather bashful, Daniel stutters slightly as he speaks: "I put together the system that's working back in '93." His British accent combined with a quiet voice makes his words difficult to distinguish, so I move closer to hear the story of a coffee maker that resembles the one sitting on my parents' kitchen counter back in the United States.
According to the Trojan Room Biography, the official story posted on the website, it all began in the dark days of 1991, when the World Wide Web was but a blinking cursor in computer scientists' eyes. Quentin Strafford-Fraser, a university computer researcher, was working on ATM networks, the lab's big project at the time. He and his colleagues, scattered around the building, consumed vast quantities of coffee from the single machine outside the Trojan Room. Those who worked right inside always had a hot cup of Java, but those forced to navigate up and down stairs, in and around corners, often arrived to an empty pot. So XCoffee was born.
Quentin and his cohorts rigged up a camera, aimed it at the machine and transmitted icon-sized images of the coffeepot to everyone's computer within the network. The image was updated three times a minute. Seen only on university department computer screens, the coffeepot might have led an obscure life if Daniel hadn't arrived. Working on the university's new webserver, he saw a way to expand the coffee maker's horizons. A lifetime tinkerer, Daniel rummaged about the university lab and found a pile of computer and camera parts about to be tossed out. He built a camera that transmitted an IP Multicast image of the coffeepot every three minutes, 24 hours a day, on the World Wide Web.
At first, the coffeepot site received 2,000 hits a day. That's a lot of visitors logging on to see how much coffee is brewing. The coffeepot quickly gained cult status in 1993 as what Daniel believes to be the first live image shown on the fledgling web. At the time, perhaps 100 sites existed, mostly text with few pictures. The reality that people on one continent could see the hazy image of a coffee maker working on another was a novelty. Daniel received letters from people who complained about the nighttime image-the lab lights were turned off when everyone went home; hence the spotlight. Notes arrived praising the technology, and Daniel still receives mail, email that is. An average of 500 visitors log on each day to see his shining star. "The website has attracted 2.4 million visitors since 1993," said Daniel, noting that the current coffeepot is one of a number of replacements. The original one broke down some time ago.
Now the website, which shows nothing more than the pot slowly filling up, will be shut down and consigned to the history books as the computer lab moves to a new location. "Only five years ago it was a novelty; now it is of historical interest. Only on the web could something make that transition so quickly," said Strafford-Fraser.
With the coffee maker's impending doom, people nationwide are rallying to its cause. According to a recent news story, the coffeepot Web site was "one of the first of its kind-the mundane as virtual art." It's become a tradition people want to preserve. "Please don't retire it," said Marc Brayton, in an email to Strafford-Fraser.
"It's had its day," Strafford-Fraser said, adding he'll write an epitaph on the website. I had my day too, wandering around the computer lab with Daniel Gordon. He shared the latest project involving six images shown simultaneously on a computer screen. Modern technology is already obsolete in this university lab as research scientists like Strafford-Fraser and Gordon continue to envision new uses for computers. And like Gordon, it is the opportunity to see what others don't that propels my explorations. In a recent interview about the end of the infamous coffeepot, Gordon related a story of an American who visited the tourist information center and asked where the coffeepot was so she could see it. She took lots of pictures, Gordon told the reporter, noting that the coffeepot wasn't really very impressive. I couldn't help but wonder if I was that American tourist.
Nancy Eichorn taught writing for a California high school before earning her Masters of Arts in nonfiction writing from the University of New Hampshire, in May 2001. She has been a freelance writer since 1993 and hopes to combine writing with a position teaching writing. neichhorn@ttlc.ne