>The ATM is a bunch of inventions combined into one unit. One person saying they invented something so complex seems absurd.
For the most part, that is how inventions work. The person who invented the mobile phone didn't invent radio transmission or integrated circuits. Most inventions involve putting together existing systems and inventions into a novel design. (As another comment points out, the Wright brothers is somewhat of an exception to this rule, as the did invent many of the features in their flying machine).
The original ATMs described here were non-networked vending machines. ATMs that talked to the bank's accounting systems came later. Walter Wriston, the CEO of Citibank, had one of the first systems developed. He'd observed that customers were lining up in branches just to ask for their current balance, wasting teller time. So he had his IT people develop a card-based query terminal. It didn't dispense money, but it was tied to the bank's computer infrastructure. This required a lot of back-end development; on-line transaction processing was new then, and mainframes delivered about 1 MIPS. Getting the computers of that era to deliver the needed transaction rate was tough.
It all came together with the IBM 2984, in 1972, the first ATM that talked to the bank's accounting systems in real time.
The ATM is a bunch of inventions combined into one unit. One person saying they invented something so complex seems absurd.
"Goodfellow accepts he didn’t invent the concept of a cash-issuing machine, “but I did invent a way of doing it. When people talk about the Wright brothers, they didn’t invent the concept of flying, everyone was trying to do it – but they did it and got the credit for inventing the aeroplane, so I think I should get the credit for inventing the cash dispenser.”"
This is such a bullshit argument. Yes it probably has some validity as any non-trivial invention has prior art, but the Wright Brothers invented most of the fundamentals of their aircraft, and the ones they didn't invent were usually the first time that innovation was tried in regards to flight. Their practical competitors at the time were able to make hops and jaunts but ultimately unable to do proper controlled fight and their designs often were very different than the workable Wright design. See the Clement Ader's steam-powered bat-like plane for an example.
The Wrights designed the gas engine (with the help of Charles Taylor), the airframe was of their own design, and a propeller of their own design. This is a significant number of innovations all at once. While its arguable on whether others should get credit here, its clear that this really is a rare case of a lot of different innovations producing the "invention." If you're going to compare yourself to someone to defend a "we all stand on the shoulders of giants" argument, I doubt the Wright Brothers are a good example for this. They weren't standing on too many shoulders back in 1900. Flight was just too new.
Interestingly, while the Wright brothers are famous for having invented the airplane, they were utter business failures in the aviation industry. The main reason? IMO, they were too focused on patent litigation instead of innovation.
Without the cash-issuing, the ATM is nothing but a remote terminal connected to a computer. (Or, arguably, even with).
He's saying that he invented terminals, essentially. Look, he's holding up a punched card; he invented that too, I suppose. Jacquard, who was that? Just a silk-weaving loom boy.
You'd put your card in, and enter your pin, and the machine would give you a £10 and keep your card. Bank staff would then open the machine on Monday morning, take all the cards out, debit the accounts, and mail the cards back to the owners.
I was surprised that there's only 3m ATMs! I would have guessed very many more.
I always enjoy these "how many gas stations are there in Chicago?" back-of-the-envelopers. My first thought was maybe a small city of 50000 might be served by 10 ATMs more-or-less. Scaling up to 7B people worldwide my first guess would be 7B/5K ~ 1.5M . Maybe even less to account for my unrealistic first-world-everywhere methodology. So my guess is wrong too.
A wholly unsubstantiated claim; particularly egregious when discussing someone being paid by a bank, which have a long history of catastrophic failures. The salary person's risk is, at least, that the bank's money is no good (or won't be not long after received).
If it was today, a patent troll would of claimed it lol.
The examples show that the patent system doesn't work.
1) Inventor invents something, someone screws over inventor.
2) Inventor invents something, someone copies inventor, Inventor takes it to court gets financial ruin fighting his claim.
How to fix the system easy.
1)More and better help for inventors to license their product especially overseas.
2)A inventor can challenge someone in UK courts where they have copied there idea and has to pay court fees for the inventor.
Back in the day one of the instructors I had in college was telling us about his early days working with a precursor to the modern ATM. He said the biggest hurdle was regulatory -- there were regulations on a bank's branch offices, and an ATM was considered a branch office.
For the most part, that is how inventions work. The person who invented the mobile phone didn't invent radio transmission or integrated circuits. Most inventions involve putting together existing systems and inventions into a novel design. (As another comment points out, the Wright brothers is somewhat of an exception to this rule, as the did invent many of the features in their flying machine).