Onthis day in 1969, America's first automatic teller machine (ATM) makesits public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank inRockville Centre, New York. ATMs went on to revolutionise the bankingindustry, eliminating the need to visit a bank to conduct basicfinancial transactions. By the 1980s, these money machines had becomewidely popular and handled many of the functions previously performedby human tellers, such as cheque deposits and money transfers betweenaccounts. Today, ATMs are as indispensable to most people as cellphones and e-mail.

Several inventors worked on early versionsof a cash-dispensing machine, but Don Wetzel, an executive at Docutel,a Dallas company that developed automated baggage-handling equipment,is generally credited as coming up with the idea for the modern ATM.Wetzel reportedly conceived of the concept while waiting in line at abank. The ATM that debuted in New York in 1969 was only able to giveout cash, but in 1971, an ATM that could handle multiple functions,including providing customers' account balances, was introduced.

ATMs eventually expanded beyond the confines of banks and today can befound everywhere from garages to convenience stores to cruise ships.There is even an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Non-banks leasethe machines (so-called "off premise" ATMs) or own them outright.

Today there are well over 1 million ATMs around the world, with a newone added approximately every five minutes. It's estimated that morethan 170 Americans over the age of 18 had an ATM card in 2005 and usedit six to eight times a month. Not surprisingly, ATMs get their busiestworkouts on Fridays.

In the 1990s, banks began charging feesto use ATMs, a profitable move for them and an annoying one forconsumers. Consumers were also faced with an increase in ATM crimes andscams. Robbers preyed on people using money machines in poorly lit orotherwise unsafe locations, and criminals also devised ways to stealcustomers' PINs (personal identification numbers), even setting up fakemoney machines to capture the information. In response, city and stategovernments passed legislation such as New York's ATM Safety Act in1996, which required banks to install such things as surveillancecameras, reflective mirrors and locked entryways for their ATMs.