Radioactive check in your pocket

[Brother]

Voucher with a radioactive label (used carbon-14)

The first ATM dispensed cash with a radioactive voucher. The first ATM in England appeared, belonged to the Barclay's bank. The press nicknamed this device "robot cashier", the name "ATM", familiar to the Russian ear, arose later, when another device of this type appeared in Sweden. Well, yes, more on that sometime next time.

Such a check (voucher) had to be taken from a bank in order to later "cash out" at this ATM. As you can see, the denomination was fixed at £ 10. Perforation is visible on it, like on a punched card (it is no coincidence that the size of that check strongly resembles the size of a punched card).

After purchasing such a voucher, it remained valid for six months from the date of issue, and until the moment of "activation" at the ATM.

To understand exactly how the user interacted with the "ATM" (this was not yet a full-fledged ATM, therefore in quotes), you need to look at the device itself. Here it is:

Barclaycash's first ATM, nicknamed robot cashier
As you can see, it has a couple of "drawers".

The check bore the owner's personal signature; it served as the first form of identification and authorization. The client put the voucher in the "drawer" number 1 (it is just put forward in the photo), then entered a certain electronic signature using the keyboard, it served as the "second form of identification. Entering this" signature "activated the" drawer "number 2. It slid out, and a satisfied customer found a wad of ten one-pound bills in it.

The "electronic signature" was a four-digit identification number. It was not yet the PIN code we are used to, it will only be invented in a couple of years.

The voucher was then taken out by the collectors, and a transaction was carried out on it on the client's account, as if it were an operation familiar to the British with a regular check during the bank's working hours.

In general, it was an experiment for the bank, but there was a serious hope that in the future such "mini-banks" will begin to play the role of a round-the-clock service, and will significantly reduce the load on bank tellers during working hours.

It is difficult for us to imagine this now, but in those days there was no other way to get cash, except to come to the bank cashier and make an operation with a live cashier. In addition, after the Second World War, the role of checks in Western countries has greatly increased, and they had to somehow be cashed.

Radiation​

In order to automatically check the authenticity of the voucher at the "ATM", a very extravagant method was used for us now - a radioactive label made of carbon-14. In the "ATM" itself there was a radiation sensor (no details could be found, but, apparently, the usual Geiger counter), and on a signal from it, the ATM understood that it had been presented with a valid voucher.

Actually, nothing else was required to check - after all, there was only one "voucher" denomination, for 10 pounds. Actually, at that level of development of electromechanics and electronics, nothing more complicated in the first industrial device could have been implemented. However, quite quickly after that, other, more functional devices began to appear, which already strongly resembled the ATMs we are used to.

What for?​

They are strange, these Englishmen ... Go to the bank to buy a voucher, then come to this machine and withdraw cash again. It's really hard for us in Russia to understand. But in the United States and Britain, as I said, checks were widely used, a kind of non-cash method of payment. Against this background, such vouchers were something quite reasonable.