Biorhythms

The biorhythm arcade machines of the 1970s were certainly akin to fortune-telling machines, but with all those lines and numbers, they gave the impression that their predictions were actually steeped in cold, hard science. 

No sir, this wasn’t any kind of Zoltan hocus-pocus - after all, if you were staring down at a custom-made graph that looked like something straight out of your geometry class, you had to be staring at the truth. Right?

The main tenet of biorhythm states that there are three cycles which affect our lives: the physical, the emotional and the intellectual.

Each cycle starts at a zero mid-point when we are born, then travels above and below the zero line over the course of our lifetimes. If a particular cycle is at a high point on a certain day, then on that day, we will do things pertaining to that cycle better. A discernable spike in your “physical” cycle, for instance, means it's a good day for a little work-out.

To enjoy the full Biorhythm experience, a person inserted the coinage into the machine, punched in their birthday and these machines would spit out a "personal", for-your-eyes-only chart, by which one could tell the high and low days for each of their cycles, essentially providing a roadmap on how to live your life.

All that for some loose change? What more could you ask for?