At 02:01 PM 10/31/98 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Has anyone here had any experience with ATMs?
>What sort of specs might an ATM have? How does it connect to the
>bank computer?
I wrote the code for the first on-line ATM in the United States. This was
in 1973. I worked for IBM at the time.
It was in Califon NJ at Hunterton County Trust Company a monster of an 18
million dollar asset bank.
There is a very high degree of sophistication and algorithms to make sure
that only the authorized person gets the money and that the information is
properly recorded at the bank. In the original days the information was
recorded on the magnetic stripe on the card (on the off-line machines). At
the time I was involved they used a fairly sophisticated phone line
technology but I'm sure it is even more so at this time.
The IBM BiSync ATM was remote to an IBM System 7 where the authorization
and logging was done. The disk pack (looked like Star Trex Enterprise) was
carried over to an IBM System 3 where the transactions were posted to
accounts and new info put on pack to bring back to the machine.
Up to this time all ATM's were off-line and hot card postings had to be
entered in each and every machine. Keeping track of withdraws was done on
the mag stripe and subject to fraud. At the time hot cards were posted
transactions were picked up (often from paper tape). I remember one time on
a competitors machine over $10,000 of transactions were posted on a single
line of a jammed adding machine tape.
gene_at_ehrich
http://www.voicenet.com/~generic
Computer & Video Game Garage Sale
Received on Sat Oct 31 1998 - 18:58:46 GMT