Luther George Simjian

In the late 1930's, Luther George Simjian started building an earlier and not-so-successful version of an ATM. He did
register related patents. He initially came up with the idea of creating a "hole-in-the-wall machine." It would allow
customers to make financial transactions, without entering the bank. The idea was met with a great deal of doubt.
Starting in 1939, Simjian registered 20 patents related to the device and persuaded what is now Citicorp to give it a
trial. After six months, the bank reported that there was little demand. Today, as you know, there is a huge demand!

John Shepherd-Barron
John Shepherd-Barron had an idea in the 1960's for a 24/7 cash dispenser. He was managing director of De La
RueInstruments. De La Rue today manufactures cash dispensers. There is a De La Rue cash dispenser in 1 out of
every 5 ATM machines built. If you want to say that Shepherd-Barron invented the ATM, then the world's first ATM
was installed outside North London. It was installed in a branch of Barclays Bank in 1967. Later that year, ShepherdBarron presented his idea to a conference. The conference consisted of 2,000 US bankers in Miami, this was after
the first ATMs had been installed in England. He spoke to the conference about the new self-service banking device
he developed. On December 31, 2004, John Shepherd-Barron, was named an OBE, Officer of the Order of the
British Empire by the Queen. It was for "services to banking." Shepherd Barron said: "It was a bit late, but better late
than never." Press releases stated that Shepherd-Barron was the "Inventor of the ATM." But, was he really the
inventor?
Sadly, John Shepherd-Barron passed away, in May of 2010, in Scotland.

James Goodfellow
As a Development engineer with Smiths Industries Ltd, James Goodfellow was given a project. It was to develop an
automatic cash dispenser in 1965. Chubb Lock & Safe Co. were to provide the secure physical housing. They were
also to develop a mechanical dispenser mechanism. Mr. Goodfellow designed the new system. It consisted of a
machine readable encrypted card, and the machine that read it. To this he added a numerical keypad. UK Patent
No.1,197,183 with a priority date of May 2 1966, covers this invention. It is also covered by US Patent No.3,905,461
and Patents granted by many other countries. These Patents list James Goodfellow as inventor, along with the late
A.I.O.Davies, the company General Manager. This US Patent still describes the basic ATM function almost 40 years

later. These Machines were marketed by Chubb LTD. They were installed nationwide in the UK during the late 60s
and early 70s. You can read "Who Invented the ATM? Part 2 here: ATM inventor James Goodfellow's story on
ATMmachine.com. "
Thanks goes out to Mr. Goodfellow for giving us his permission.
(Update: In 2006, James Goodfellow was selected by the Queen to be awarded an OBE for his services. He was
awarded this as patentee of the Personal Identification Number (PIN), and for his service to banking.

Don Wetzel
In 1968, according to a NMAH interview, Don Wetzel, says he was the Vice President of Product Planning at Docutel.
The company that developed automated baggage-handling equipment. He applied for a patent on an ATM machine.
He said there were two other inventors listed on the patent. They were Tom Barnes, a mechanical engineer. George
Chastain, an electrical engineer. It took five million dollars to develop their ATM according to Mr. Wetzel. If you want
say that Wetzel and company invented the ATM, then you might want to read the next paragraph.

John D. White
John D. White told ATMmachine.com that his work started in 1968. He told us that he installed the first ATM at
Rockville Center, LI for the then Chemical Bank in August 1973. His design was patented on May 9, 1973 the
machine was a "Credit Card Automatic Currency Dispenser" . Mr. White provided copies of his patent to
ATMmachine.com. We reviewed them. It does indeed state that the inventor of the machine was John D. White and
Kenneth Goldstein. The assignee on the patent was the Docutel Corporation. This is very convincing evidence. It
appears that it was White and not Wetzel who received the patent. There is also a statement in the patent that
supports the idea of the modern ATM.
"Both the original code and the updated code are scrambled in accordance with a changing key", which is what
happens today. ATM's are programmed with security keys and the code changes. Today they must be 3DES certified.
It is encrypted ( scrambled) to prevent fraudulent access to credit card and ATM debit numbers. This occurs between
the machine, the bank, and the network processor. In the form of data transmissions. We would like to thank Mr.
White for contacting us. And for sharing all of the documentation. The patent drawings he gave us look very much like
the free standing ATM that is sold on ATMmachine.com today.

In the late 1930's, Luther George Simjian started building an earlier and not-so-successful version of an ATM. He did
register related patents. He initially came up with the idea of creating a "hole-in-the-wall machine." It would allow
customers to make financial transactions, without entering the bank. The idea was met with a great deal of doubt.

Starting in 1939, Simjian registered 20 patents related to the device and persuaded what is now Citicorp to give it a
trial. After six months, the bank reported that there was little demand.
John Shepherd-Barron had an idea in the 1960's for a 24/7 cash dispenser. He was managing director of De La
RueInstruments. De La Rue today manufactures cash dispensers. There is a De La Rue cash dispenser in 1 out of
every 5 ATM machines built. James Goodfellow, a Development engineer with Smiths Industries Ltd was given a
project in 1965. Chubb Lock & Safe Co was to provide the secure physical housing. UK Patent No.1,197,183, dated
May 2nd 1966, covers this invention. It is also covered by US Patent No.3,905,461 and Patents granted by many other
countries, John D. White and Jairus Larson are the others who made a contributions for todays ATM

Jairus Larson told ATMmachine.com he did not invent the ATM. But, as far as he is aware, he developed the first 'online' ATM. This would be Diebold's "550". The first ATM's were all 'off-line' versions (referred to in the past as 'standalone'). Meaning they did not have any means to communicate with the bank network. Today's ATMs are "on-line".
On-line in the sense that they communicate with the bank's computer system. Mr. Larson was kind enough to give us
his account of how this happened in the early 1970's