Happy birthday ATM

Old Jun 27th, 2017, 06:44 AM
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Happy birthday ATM

The ATM has made a fundamental change in the mechanics of travelling. ("Mommy, what's a traveller's cheque?") Now it is 50 years old, much longer than I would have guessed. And since it began in Europe, that's where I am posting this interesting article:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hap...-it-2017-06-27
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 07:17 AM
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I heard a story about that on BBC this morning. I had no idea that's where it started. ONe thing I found a little curious was that it said ATM use has gone down in recent years. No explanation, I wonder if it's just because not as many people are using cash anymore, just paying for everything with credit cards or swiping or whatever (although I doubt if that many people are paying for things by phone app).
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 07:19 AM
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All of those. Contactless is taking off in a big way here.
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 09:30 AM
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Reg Varney at his best?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2e...rly-shifts_fun


From the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/8012.shtml
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 09:32 AM
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Why is this a trip report??
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 11:19 AM
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I do think people are paying with their phones, as well as paying with cards of all sorts, and much less with cash. In Italy, we're not quite there yet. I've seen people in the US buy chewing gum with a card. ATMs are mostly useful for people who want to pay with cash.

The first ATM I saw was much more recent than 50 years ago. I would have been around 1985, or a year or so later. It was in Princeton NJ, and was called, according to a sign, Harvey Wallbanker.

In around 1987 I saw an ATM in China, or maybe in Hong Kong. I decided to try to withdraw some money, just out of curiosity, and was astonished when I had cash in my hands within a minute, withdrawn from an account on the other side of the world.
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 11:26 AM
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I remember seeing ATMs almost 50 years ago, but I'm sure I'm a lot older than you. There were ATMs where I lived (COlumbus Ohio) since about 1970.
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 11:34 AM
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Christina the article says the first in the US was in 1969, in New York.

Used to use the magic money machine a lot, but now I hardly ever do.
I never carry cash. The only time I use an ATM (nicknamed a flappentap here) is if I want to give my grandkids some money, or if we are going away in the camper when many places expect cash still.
An increasing number of shops here do not accept cash Buses in any places also do not accept cash any more.

Since it has become much harder, nigh on impossible, to ski European bankcards now blowing up ATMs is a popular activity.
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Old Jun 27th, 2017, 11:44 AM
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If there were ATMs in Columbus Ohio, there must have been in Princeton! I just don't remember seeing them. I just did some research on the internet; the Smithsonian has a good article. It seems that the early ATMs were not networked, so could only communicate with the bank by which they were owned. They also used cards with fixed amounts that could be withdrawn, e.g., a card allowed you to withdraw $25. The cards were not returned to the user; they were later mailed to the client, as checks were in those days.

I suppose I first became aware of them when they had re-usable cards are were networked. The thing that astonished me in China was not that a machine could dispense cash, but that the machine was in a network with my American bank. The internet was in its infancy at that time. In 1986, I was working in the Hague, and needed some data from the US to continue my research. I had to make a phone call to my university, and they mailed me a computer tape. Just a few years later, I would have been able to connect to a computer at the university using "telnet" and transfer the files using ftp.
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Old Jun 28th, 2017, 08:44 AM
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Columbus was the center of a couple banks. They were particularly popular around the OSU campus, students liked to use them a lot. They didn't use cards with fixed amounts on them that I can remember, you had a bank card just like now (at least in Columbus). I know you didn't have to go into a bank to buy a card to then use in the ATM.

They were popular with people who needed cash late at night for buying marijuana, for example.

City National Bank (Banc One) in COlumbus was one of the first banks in the US to have ATMs, actually. Quote from a filing with the Federal Reserve when seeking to merge

>

https://www.federalreserve.gov/event...3/19980813.htm

So Columbus isn't always backward compared to NJ

I guess various banks think they had the first ATM in the US, though. I remember some debate with a friend on Facebook who posted some feminist thing about how in the early 70s you couldn't have a credit card as a woman. I said this wasn't true, I had one back in COlumbus Ohio back then. This is the article:
https://www.bustle.com/articles/1362...cards-10-women

If you read the fine print, it says that "many banks" wouldn't give them to women in the 1970s, not that none would, but some did in Columbus!

Now that I look back on it, it's hard to remember how you did things before credit cards. I guess you had to carry cash around with you after cashing your pay check, or maybe cash checks in stores.
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Old Jun 28th, 2017, 10:24 AM
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>>Now that I look back on it, it's hard to remember how you did things before credit cards. I guess you had to carry cash around with you after cashing your pay check, or maybe cash checks in stores.
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