Thursday, May 20, 2010

ATM Inventor Dies

John Sheppard-Baron, who is credited with inventing the ATM machine, has died.  This article from the Chicago Tribune has his obituary.  And oh, how times have changed with the ATM:

The first automated teller machine, or ATM, was installed at a branch of Barclays in a north London suburb on June 27, 1967. (An earlier mechanical device was installed at a New York bank in 1939, but it was soon dismantled when customers showed no interest.)

Instead of plastic bank cards, Shepherd-Barron's machine used special checks that were chemically coded. Customers placed the checks in a drawer, and after a personal identification number (PIN) was entered, a second drawer would spring open with a 10-pound note.

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