ATMs

Gene Ehrich wrote: And at that time all ATM's were at the exterior of the banks, bolted into a reinforced wall opening and connected direct to the banks mainframe, except for the branch banks that had to have the disk pack taken to the main division if the branch did not have the correct reader or were manually transferred over phone lines but were still part of the building. I don't remember the free standing machines until around 1980 or 82. They were very accurate as you say but could be depended upon to misread a card and therefore disallow a transaction, or go offline and not do any transactions at all. Much of that was bad installation leaving it in a place that wasn't temperature or humidity stable. The part you state of the paper record being jammed and illegible was a real and nearly fatal problem then. My girlfriend at the time was a data processor for Standard Federal Bank in Chicago and it was a continuous fight to get convenience transactions to be very popular with the bank workers as well as bank customers. Many did not trust them, more so than today (and they had no bogus ATM's in the mall at that point yet). I still have a respect for the technology but don't trust my personal livelyhood and security to the machines. I'll take my chances with cash still.