Cash issuing terminals
computer.rip

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116 points

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zdw

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3 days ago

25 comments

seanhunter ・ 3 days ago

My uncle was part of the team in Bank of America implementing new ATM software at the time they moved to somewhat customizing the interface so it had a quick button on the first menu to give you your favourite withdrawal amount quickly, let you choose what notes you wanted etc. He said it was written in java and his favourite bit was writing the method that would be called (after all checks were done to make sure you had the money etc) to issue the cash. It was called “dispenseWithoutQuestion()”.

You could call dispenseWithoutQuestion(someamount) and the device would spit that amount of cash out so it was obviously tremendously pleasing to test.

  • amluto ・ 2 days ago

    I hope it returned how much it dispensed so that a dispenser failure would result in a refund.

  • neuroelectron ・ 3 days ago

    Why would this be tremendously pleasing to test?

    • Stratoscope ・ 3 days ago

      You get money!

      Of course you don't get to keep the money, but it is yours for a moment, even if just to count it.

      And beyond that, you get to see your code operate a physical machine that you can touch.

      How many of us get to do that?

      • seanhunter ・ 2 days ago

        Yeah exactly. The test lab had an ATM which you call the function and it spits out money (that you don’t get to keep, but still).

      • pwdisswordfishy ・ 2 days ago
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        Wouldn't that be Monopoly money anyway?

        • qup ・ 2 days ago
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          Doubt it, the bill reader checks all the bills before dispensing, so it would be bypassed for monopoly money.

          Maybe they used $1s or something.

          • kotaKat ・ 2 days ago

            Nah, they get 'test money' to load into the dispensers, and it's something banks will also buy for things like ATM demonstrators.

            https://shop.dieboldnixdorf.com/atm-demonstration-currency/p...

            (We haven't really had "ATM demonstrations" in a long time specifically, but there was a bit of time in the early adoption era to get a fake card into a customer's hand and let them play with a demonstration machine in your lobby or in an office to get to see how convenient it was to get the play money out. See also the tabletop demonstrator Triton built, the ATM Jr - https://triton.com/about-triton/innovative-history/)

chiph ・ 2 days ago

Many years ago, I worked on a project in Tennessee where the bank was installing computers in their branches (previously the tellers were using mainframe terminals). At the same time, they were consolidating the leased data lines to the branches to save money, as everything there was now a network device - including the ATMs.

The IBM representative on our team was working behind the through-the-wall ATM, routing some wires when a customer walked up (you could see them via the camera). Being a prankster, he started talking to her in a robotic voice: "Please insert card", "Please choose a transaction", etc. After a few of these he couldn't hold back any further and started laughing. The customer got the joke and started laughing too: "I knew someone was back there!"

Briefly, he was their first (and only) talking ATM.

zabzonk ・ 3 days ago

I remember the first ATMs I used back in the late 1970s. They were IBM machines with a red LED display, single-line, in a fairly heavily armoured, tiltable (to take into account people's different heights) slot.

These days we have big, full-colour LCD displays, without armouring. In Lincolnshire UK, where I live thieves just pull the whole ATM out of wall with a (stolen) JCB digger and take it away to be cut open at their leisure. That is if they can find one, of course. For both thief and bank customer ATMs are becoming increasingly rare - though not as rare perhaps as brick-and-mortar bank branches.

  • TMWNN ・ 2 days ago

    Relevant: TIL that ATMs are robbed with explosives. Criminals fill machines with propane or acetylene then ignite the gas, or use external bombs. Germany (where 60% of attacks succeed) is Europe's #1 target; landlords don't like to lease to banks with ATMs, because blowing them up endangers other tenants. <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1im37e4/til_t...>

  • Stratoscope ・ 3 days ago

    Some of our SF Peninsula bank branches now have two tiers of ATMs:

    • The traditional through-the-wall machines that you can access from outside.

    • Inside the branch, heavy duty standalone machines that dispense much more cash and more of a variety of bills. These are only accessible when the branch is open, unless you break glass.

    • zabzonk ・ 3 days ago

      Our friendly Lincolnshire ATM thieves are using serious demolition equipment. A little thing like a brick wall is not going to stop them.

      You might almost admire them if they were like Robin Hood, but they are coke dealing f*ckwits, as is obvious when they come to trial.

  • jonathantf2 ・ 3 days ago

    In my hometown someone did this, take half the wall of the Nationwide branch out along with the ATM. Someone also tried to get a free standing one from inside a shop but just ended up destroying the frontage and not taking it home with them.

cperciva ・ 3 days ago

This is worth reading for the line "For some reason difficult to divine the radioactive ATM card did not catch on." alone.

  • zabzonk ・ 2 days ago

    Oh, I don't know. I quite like radioactivity. My Dad (RAF bomber pilot) had a pilots watch with radium luminous dials. I always fancied getting it after his death, about 12 years ago, but nobody could find it - my brothers denied all knowledge, and I have absolutely no reason to doubt them. So it must be somewhere irradiating the roaches that will become our inevitable successors.

    • cperciva ・ 2 days ago

      Oh, I entirely agree. There are cool ways that radioactivity can be used entirely safely.

      But I also understand that a lot of people don't understand -- so I see why even entirely safe uses of radioactivity are concerning to the public, even though they shouldn't be.

zvr ・ 2 days ago

Decades ago I worked on an ATM that "recycled" money. It did not only had the usual boxes of banknotes that were filled by the bank, but it also accepted deposits. Usually deposits are put in an envelope by the client and an envelope is stored in the machine; this makes reconciliation easy, since a bank employee opens the envelope, counts the money, and confirms the deposit transaction.

But on this ATM, people would deposit their banknotes directly. The machine would recognize and count them, crediting the correct amount to the person's account. And later, when someone wanted to get money out of the ATM, the machine would use these exact banknotes!

It was an innovative design, which saved the bank a lot of money (in ATM-caring trips) and provided people with a real service, since they could use the ATM longer, instead of getting error messages that it was out of cash (well, it never said that it was something more generic like "problem in operation").

As one can imagine, it was an interesting challenge designing the software and thinking of all the tests covering what might go wrong...

  • TRiG_Ireland ・ a day ago

    I've never seen an ATM which took money in envelopes. Does it just take on trust the amount until it's verified by an employee counting it later?

Animats ・ 3 days ago

No mention of Walter Wriston and First National City Bank (later Citicorp)? Wriston is sometimes credited with the concept of networked ATMs, in the sense that he as an executive pushed the project forward.[1] He scaled up the technology, flooding New York City with ATMs. Then everybody else in banking had to install them.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/21/obituaries/walter-b-wrist...

tl2do ・ 3 days ago

In Japan, Omron developed early ATMs that looked similar to American and European machines. Though those early forms have changed significantly over time, Omron remains a top maker today (their ATM division later became a joint venture with Hitachi, so the Omron name is no longer used).

Unlike IBM, Omron specializes in ATM hardware, not bank internal systems. That difference in focus could have mattered.

mmastrac ・ 2 days ago

I'm on mobile so I can't check but damn the Univers font really calls back to the pleasant reading experiences of 70s technical documentation.