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Top 10 Inventions in Money Technology During the 1900's
scuggums writes "The DaVinci Institute has put together an interesting historic piece to help put the world of money technology into perspective. While I'm glad to see the ATM machine made the list, I had no idea it was invented back in 1939. Other items on the list are barcodes, spreadsheets, and RSA encryption. This looks to be one of the research pieces the Institute's doing for their upcoming Future of Money Summit in October."
"While I'm glad to see the ATM machine made the list"
wow and automatic teller machine machine, is that used to make ATM's ?
The first international banking system was establish ed by the Knights Templar during the crusades. It used something like a check, so that pilgrims didn't have to carry physical wealth with them along the way. The involvement of the templar in money handling is part of what made them so wealthy, which was part of what made them so feared, which was King Philip eventually rounded up and arrested the leaders of the order. I just think it's kind of interesting that banking has its roots in a militant order...
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Crudely Drawn Games
what exactly does a "smart card" have to do with money technology?
Most of the ones I've seen used are as digital tokens to access computers, enter security doors... Apart from the "credit cards" you can charge up at Kinkos (and I would consider those credit cards, not "smart cards") I've never seen one used that had a big impact on money technology.
Anyone?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
From the article: Other technologies developed in the 1990s didn't make the list because most have not reached the level of impact that the following items have.
So they ignore all the cool 1990's technology that has already had widespread influence and put the Smart Card on the list, which has never amounted to anything...
The unofficial
to test all new new inventions coming out of the mint. I can handle large test batches too.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Just Imagine all the new possibilities for new cominations you can arrange if you combine the latest in technology with the old paper bill.
I'm really looking forward to the bill that makes its possible to track where the bill was, who used it and what was bought. For example, retailers could produce special targeted advertising for peole that came with money they had won in a lottery. If the retailer knows where the customer has grabbed the money its much easier to sell thing based on customer history and public profiles.
A on the security side the government can destroy money that belongs to suspected criminals and therby prevent crime before it takes place. If you don't have cash its difficault to opperate for example a drug ring.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
One of the top 10 'innovations' would have to be the removal of gold backing the Dollar, allowing for huge national deficits. A nice timeline is here.
Frankly, smart cards shouldn't be on that list, as the intended use(storing money on the card) has not been perfected against people hacking the card for more money. Smart cards trust the "client", and as any MMORPG developer can tell you, that's a bad thing. Paper money and credit cards at least have some protection, smart cards on the other hand are a relitively easy fraud source for anyone with a card writer, and the resources to use it; unlike any other method, you end up with a perfect "digital copy" of the money.
...and what does it all lead to? Inventive new ways to pay for porn sites....
5.) The Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) - 1939
I think this is an invention that is both terrific and dangerous. I personally have decided to not get an ATM card, reasoning that if my money is harder to get to, it's harder to spend.
The coolest voice ever.
Another one worth mentioning, Plastic money as used in several countries now, starting as a collaboration between a couple of countries using technology developed in Australia. It's a late 80s thing and only fairly recent, but something upwards of 30 nations use last I looked.
From the article:
"American Express and MasterCard became huge successes overnight, and by the mid-'70s, Congress had to begin regulation of the credit card industry by banning such practices as the mass mailing of active cards to those who had not requested them."
There have also been significant leaps in the technology that is plain old paper currency. e.g. watermarking, plastic bank notes (Australia), holograms, etc.
Would have been nice if they had explored this aspect also. Give me good old-fashioned currency any day.
yes, I'm a small-c communist.
and you sure are a big-M Moron. How can anybody in 2003 want to abolish money?
Money isn't evil, it's just a portable simulation of real trade, just like you send files over the internet instead of having to go see the other guy and give him a diskette. The fact that certain goods or services can be overrated or underrated doesn't change the fact that money was one of the single greatest invention of the human race.
You go trade sacks of grains in the sovkhoz with your fellow idealist friends, while everybody else will takes care of advancing civilization thank you very much.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
... creative accounting on the list. Of course I imagine that predates the 1900s.
They mentioned VisiCalc, but not Apple, the only widely available platform it ran on?
Notice they didn't mention the Electric Company, which is what the Electronic Cash Register ran off of.
This Top 10 list is only concerned with finance-specific innovation, not the underlying technology/framework it runs on.
The unofficial
Look elsewhere.
Smart cards have been used to pay for stuff like gas in europe since at least 1997. I can't give you a precise date because all i know is i saw them in use when i went to France in '97. No they were not credit or debit cards.
Try Corewar @ www.koth.org - rec.games.corewar
Proud patriot and republican voter.
Some guy would pretend to be a newly-arrived African immigrant, asking his victim how to "get money from a wall." At that point, his accomplice would show up, pretending to be a stranger, also asking the student to help the poor guy out. The student, taking pity, would go to the ATM, enter their PIN, withdraw X dollars to show them how it's done.
Then, supposedly, the guy 'shows' the student how to keep his wallet safe from thieves, by hiding it in a white bag in his pants, and demonstrates with the students wallet. At which point he gives the student the white bag back, and leaves. Moments later, when the student realizes the white bag he was given doesn't have his wallet, the two guys are nowhere to be found. And usually there was a very recent subsequent cash withdrawl with the student's ATM card.
It was printed in my school paper that about half a dozen people got scammed this way. It was ridiculous, and even more so when I saw the movie "The Sting", where this scam was used exactly.
This brings up some common sense. Firstly and most importantly, does anybody enter their PIN clearly and slowly on the keypad? Especially if there are strangers present? I always block the keypad, and use all 3 fingers to do it so it's entered quickly and discretely. I also can't believe the students gave their wallets to the guy to hold for only a few seconds, and didn't check when he 'gave' it back.
But anyway, it all goes back to your Sumerian "Magic Wall". The phrasing that the thief used to imply his technological innocence and lack of understanding with modern Western society, hence creating a sense of pity in the victim.
make world, not war
No anti-counterfeiting technology? (Security strips in money, inks that change color when you change the angle, microprinting)
Surely there has been SOMETHING of interest to come from the financial/tech world to be invented in the last 20 years.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
The first international banking system was establish ed by the Knights Templar during the crusades. ... I just think it's kind of interesting that banking has its roots in a militant order.
International banking goes back to Ancient Greece. The various city-states amounted, in their day, to the equivalent of today's nation-states. They carried on bank-supported trade with each other, and with more distant states such as Egypt.
Your point about banking having its roots in a militant order is well made. Indeed, governments have always reserved for themselves two things: armies and currency.
-kgj
The title says it all. The EURO too while were at it. IMHO, government has no business being in the money business other than punishing people who act fradulently, and holding dishonest people accountable. I'm not saying we should have a gold standard, but something whose value can't be manipulated by government policy. (Yeah, I know the FED technically isn't part of the US govt - but give me a break)
Huh. They completely ignored the giant stone coinage of the Yap Islanders. What could be more innovative? The money is too large and heavy to move, so instead of carrying it around and exchanging it, the people of Yap simply point to their money when they want to purchase something, saying "That one's mine. Now it's yours." No inflation, ever, 'cause the total supply of money is completely static. No loose change lost in the sofa. No underworld money laundering. No expensive infrastructure to maintain. One drawback, of course: the first Yap to figure out how to purchase a bulldozer from the mainland using giant stone coins will end up lord and master of the whole society.
It wasn't until 1927 when the first armored car robbery occurred. The Flatheads Gang was responsible for this robbery near Pittsburgh, PA. It was reported that $104,250 was taken in the heist.
Gangs had such cooler names back on those days.
The article states "Electronic Spreadsheet", not specifically VisiCalc.
But since you want to make this a Mac issue... From the article:
<flamesuit class="on">
Wow... the Mac was dying since 1980?
</flamesuit>
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
ATM machine?
What's next:
PIN number?
Contains Windows NT technology?
Just say no to redundancy!
This may be offtopic and/or trolling... but it's definitely more entertaining than the linked article.
Bravo!
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Exactly! I can't wait until the government tracks our every move and makes the information available to corporations! That should sure totally eliminate all violent crime, and with no side effects, either! Maybe they'll allow us to all have cameras in our home, next!
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
"The social impact of the credit card cannot be under-estimated.
That means it's really small! I think they mean it can't be oversetimated."
In this instance, the "cannot" does not mean "we are unable to underestimate the social impact", but rather, "The social impact of the credit card should not be under-estimated". In other words, don't under-estimate the social impact....
or something like that. The author used the term correctly.
Consider "ATM machine" as opposed to "ATM data link" as opposed to "at the moment" abbreviated as opposed to "Adobe Type Manager" as opposed to everything else you find on. The pedantically redundant phrase "ATM machine" adds clarity.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In Hong Kong we use a smart card (stored value card) called the Octopus. I wear a waterproof Octopus watch, which contains the smart chip.
With the watch/card I can:
--take a bus or minibus from home to the subway station
--get coffee and sandwich at starbucks near the subway station
--ride the subway to the ferry terminal
--stop at 7-11 and buy a magazine
--pay for the ferry to one of many smaller islands
--get a coke from the vending machine at the ferry terminal
--go to the beach at a smaller island, don't worry about my "money" getting wet -- but no, the seafood restaurants and island bars won't take the card...
The card is totally anonymous (or so they tell us). Downsides: it has an upper limit of HK$1000, good for cheap stuff but nothing big, has to be refilled in person for cash, and isn't accepted at many places other than the ones just mentioned. The local McDonald's stopped taking them about a year ago. The Octopus was originally developed by the HK subway system (govt owned, now partially privatized) "from Australian technology" and was then extended to some retailers "near" subway facilities. I have a feeling the banks and bank regulators wouldn't let them go any further -- way too threatening.
The upshot is that, except for the fact that you are required by law to carry your ID, you can basically spend a whole day outside without having to carry a wallet. Now, try to do the same thing in most other countries. Why hasn't anyone rolled this out in the US?
[By the way, the HK govt is now phasing in smart card ID cards -- haven't heard what they plan to do with the info. Big bro has a new toy!]
...
SCO: "Okay, so what am I doing now?"
(Spies IBM)
SCO: "Ohh right, I am suing this guy!....Oh No! He's suing me!!!!!"
My Int'l Econ prof talked about this in class. The gold-standard emerged (more or less) out of WWII and was pushed by the US. This is because the US had most of the gold. During the stagflation of the 70's, the value of the dollar dropped, and most of the gold left the US. We were down to like 40% of the WWII era. (Actually, technically, it never moved more than a few dozen feet. More or less every nation in the world except France keeps their gold at Fort Knox, and International trades are done by carting gold from one room to another inside the base)
Anyway, the gold standard fell apart because it "fixes" the relationship of one current with respect to another, and the gold acts as a kind of balast to compensate for changes in the relationship. But as you can imagine, this is pretty unstable. Floating currencies, which is what 95% of most currencies are today, automatically compensate by changing exchange rates. Geographic discrepencies are arbitraged away. The system works.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
They don't seemed to have considered things like government bonds (this underlies the whole system of currency!), and more importantly in the last 100 years, financial futures (futures contracts on bonds and the like) which to quote the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT); "In 1975, the CBOT expanded its offering to include financial contracts, initially, the U.S. Treasury Bond futures contract which is now one of the world's most actively traded."
... as once upon a time money was all gold and silver coin, the note being a promissary document to pay equivalent amount in bullion ... and some banknotes still say things like 'the bank of x promises to pay the bearer the sum of ... '.
These are integral parts of the whole system in regulating and pricing the money supply! The article only seemed to have considered things that affect "money" as people would normally handle in the day to day running of our financial affairs; but still they chose to include inter-bank transfers, the armoured car, and the like.
Pre-1900 there is the invention of paper money itself
-A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed-
No inflation, ever, 'cause the total supply of money is completely static.
That isn't actually true - there's a smaller island near Yap where the special coins were periodically quarried and rafted back to Yap.
Incidentally, Milton Friedman tells the story of how when Yap was part of the German possessions in the Pacific, the German colonial government once tried to force the Yap Islanders to assist in building infrastructure improvements on their island. The islanders weren't really terribly interested.
So the colonial government drove around the island, and painted black crosses on many of the largest stones, signifying that the government had assessed them as a fine. Since these stones were now "off-limits" and removed from the money supply, the Yap economy suffered sudden, massive deflation. The panicked islanders, faced with a collapse of their economy, hurriedly agreed to help construct the required roads. Whereupon the Germans drove around and erased the crosses, enriching the islanders once more.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
There are certificates for both (or were, that is). The gold one I saw was orange. A good book is Money by James Ewart, lots of fun photos of old US money.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
electricity wasnt invented > 1900
Umm.... Electricity wasn't invented. Period.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
June 27, 1967...Barclay's Bank installs the first "Barclaycash" in England. It could only handle withdrawls, and was intended for use in emergencies when the bank was closed. An American (BJ Meredith) saw it, and was amazed at why it wasn't already in the States. He and his younger brother (Don Meredith, Dallas Cowboys quarterback) put some money together, and founded Docutel, Inc. In November 1971, they installed the world's first fully automated teller machine; a Docutel Total Teller (TT) 300, in the lobby of Atlanta's Citizens & Southern National Bank. Unfortunately customers didn't know what they were, or how to use them. Finally, First National Bank of Atlanta installed one, painted it red, and called it Tillie the All-Time Teller, and spent over half a million dollars advertising it. It made headlines all over the country. By 1977, Docutel was a $31 million company. Unfortunately, competition grew, and Docutel rushed a new model (the TT2000), in September of 1977. The buttons stuck, the machine ate cards like they were candy, and the computer overloaded after several hours of use. Plus it was larger than the previous model, so banks had to knock bigger holes in the walls to replace older models. Docutel's market share plummeted from 80% to 27%. In 1982, they merged with a company named Olivetti, but even that didn't help. In 1986, they threw in the towel. They changed the banking world forever, but never survived long enough to cash in on the world they had created.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
I have to say I find it odd that every single one of these inventions was made in the U.S.A.
Many other countries have significant financial institutions that are equally, or arguably more, sophisticated.
I don't have the timem or for that matter the inclination to research this myself, but I'd have thought that at least one out of any top ten money technology inventions would have had a non-U.S. origin.
I can remember going to the department store with my mother back in that era. The department store used special models of cash registers that were huge and had many more buttons than a normal cash register. They also had a pneumatic tube system to send paperwork from one department to another.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
10. Tote boards
...
9. Tollbooths
8. Pay toilets
7. Collect calls
6. 900 numbers
5. Ponzi
4. Disney dollars
3. The mill
2. Raleigh coupons
And, the greatest monetary technology of the
20th century
1. The 7-cent nickel (Groucho Marx)