Talk:Barclays Bank, Enfield

Good work
Hi Edwardx, Whispyhistory and Philafrenzy. I saw this had been listed and thought it'd make a good article. I was pleasantly surprised to see I'd been beaten to it! - Dumelow (talk) 06:47, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I photographed it in 2016 in preparation for this article. Next, buildings photographed in 2017. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:17, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Same here, I saw the listing (through a post by IanVisits) but hadn't noticed this article until it appeared on DYK. Nice work everyone! the wub "?!"  16:15, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

First ATM
The ATM of the period was called "Barclaycash", and I watched my father using them on several occasions, not in Enfield but other towns. The machine had a horizontal drawer handle, below which was a console of 11 round buttons each about 20-25 mm across - one row of five black buttons with digits, and one of six buttons - five black with digits plus a silver "C" button. This apparently stood for "Call", not "Cancel", and was the equivalent to "Enter". My father was supplied with a pack of paper vouchers, a little longer than a banknote of the period; the size may have been that of an IBM 80-column punched card. It carried data as a pattern of small round punched holes arranged in a few rows across the middle, not the rectangular holes occupying most of the area of the IBM format card.

To use the machine, you keyed in your PIN (which had somewhat more than four digits), and pressed "C". The number was then verified, and if good, the drawer was released. You opened it manually, inside was a turntable about one-third of which was visible; upon that were two locating pins about six inches apart. The voucher had a round hole near the centre of each shorter side, these were placed over the two pins, and the drawer closed manually. The turntable revolved, and after the voucher had been checked against the PIN, it would be replaced by a bundle of ten Series C £1 notes, the turntable revolved again and the drawer released automtically. You picked up the bundle and closed the drawer again.

There was no option for other amounts or denominations, but ten pounds got you a lot of shopping in those days. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 08:58, 21 May 2023 (UTC)