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A
girl puts her computer punch card into the slot of a money machine
outside the Westminster Bank in Charring Cross, London, on Jan. 19, 1968
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It might just be the best idea to come to a man in the bathtub since
Archimedes' time. While taking a soak, inventor John Shepherd-Barron
devised what is hailed as the world's first automatic teller machine,
although his claim to the title is a matter of dispute.
He pitched the device to the British bank Barclays. It accepted
immediately, and the first model was built and installed in London in
1967. Though the machine used PIN (personal identification number)
codes, a concept Shepherd-Barron also claims to have invented, it was
dependent on checks impregnated with the (slightly) radioactive isotope
carbon 14 to initiate a withdrawal, as the magnetic coding for ATM cards
had not yet been developed. One other difference from its ubiquitous
modern counterpart: it didn't charge a fee.
Source: http://content.time.com
