You walk
into your friendly neighborhood ATM kiosk and swipe your card. You then punch
in a 4 PIN code to authenticate yourself and proceed to withdraw money. You may
have been doing this mechanically since the day ATM was introduced but have you
given a thought why ATM PINs have a 4 digit code? No! Then read on.
Automated
Teller Machines (ATM) were first introduced in 1967 and now have emerged as a
best option to disburse cash. Instead of visiting your bank and waiting in a
long queue to withdraw money, you just have to swipe your ATM card, punch in
your secret 4 digit PIN and take away the money you require.
But if
someone was to find or steal your card, the only barrier protecting your money
is your 4-digit ATM PIN. Ever wondered why most PINs have only 4 digits? Given
that an ATM dishes out money wouldnt the manufacturers of ATMS have been wiser
to introduce a longish PIN say six digit or eight digit one. Isn’t that why our
email passwords are also expected to be 6 letters or more?
You see
there is a bit of story behind it. ATM was invented by a wellknown Scottish
inventor John Adrian Shepherd-Barron, the man who pioneered the development of
the ATM machine. Barron was born in Shillong and was son to a Wimbledon ladies
doubles champion, Dorothy Barron. When testing out his invention, Barron had
also proposed a 6-digit PIN.
However, the
first person to use his invention was his wife, Caroline. We all know that
behind every successful man is a woman, and Caroline apparently rejected the
idea of using a six code PIN for her husband’s invention because she could only
remember the numbers up to four.
When Barron
came up with the idea when he realised that he could remember his six-figure
army number. But he decided to check that with his wife, Caroline.
“Over the
kitchen table, she said she could only remember four figures, so because of
her, four figures became the world standard,” he laughs.
Reportedly,
6 numbers stringed together were too much information for her to recall.
Although,
there are many banks nowadays that offer 6 digit PINs for security purposes,
shouldn’t those of us using 4 digit PINs be thanking Caroline? It gets tough to
recall those 4 digits at times, imagine what 6 or more would do to us?
for more development and traing cum Webiste Development call +919568180808 or go to SPOKES TECHNOLOGIES
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