Did they have ATM back then?


When the family runs out of money could they have taken money out of an ATM instead of stealing it or had they not been installed in that part o f the country yet.

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I think he only had credit cards. Back in the day you coukd only use a ATM card to pull money out, credit cards didnt have that option right away. Maybe they lost it with her luggage. Plus its a movie, you have to kind of not think about that.

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It was really rare to find an ATM back then. I went to college from 88-92 and they were hard to find then. When they were around, it was usually bank-specific so that you could only withdraw money from a branch of your bank.

So, not unrealistic at all. Between cell phones and everything being available all the time now it's got to be harder to make films like this set in present time that work.

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I think back then a lot of people used traveler's cheques when they traveled.

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In the early 1980's, they were called "Teller 2's" and there was an advertising catchphrase that you don't have to get dressed up to go to the bank anymore.

And yes, they were bank specific.

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Remember the funny scene in Superman 3 with the teller machine? That movie came out the same year as this one.

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"Superman III" had no funny scenes.



"I will not go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler!" - Merkin Muffley

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A lot can be said about the movie being too campy and comedy-oriented for a Superman movie, but that doesn't necessarily mean the comedy itself was always unfunny.

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Nope. As a kid we had to go to the bank drive thru to get cash. Not ATMs.

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Then they just didn't have them where you were a kid, because they did indeed exist back in 1983.

Which is how you had this Three's Company episode titled The Money Machine:

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSYLhcMaWOLWQPBmA7F-WJXEfNoe6un69vmj8WZaYYxdtT9Sh7D

I collect dead pigeons then I press them between the pages of a book.

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They didn’t have them in all areas. I was about 8 when this movie came out and we always went through bank drive thrus for my mom to get cash. But where my grandma
lived they did have an ATM.

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So much about your banking was tied to a signature card sitting in your local bank branch back then. There were things you couldn't do even at branches of your local bank elsewhere. Also, consider that banking was not an interstate business back then. Banks operated within state. The Cirrus network was starting around then, but even using an ATM (they did exist in 1980) at a bank that was not your own likely would not have been possible. So you're from Chicago, a big city, the liklihood of finding a branch of your bank in Arizona is slim to none. Likely there were no banks in common. The inter-bank networks were just getting started and certainly no one would know about using an ATM that way. It would actually been more out of left field than a trash-bag airbag that was in the family truckster.

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I'm sure they had ATMs in the middle of the Arizona desert and the Grand Canyon. Maybe Clark could just use one at the nearest cactus or the one hole repair shop and the small town hotel. ATMs and their obnoxious expensive service charges have been around to curse us since the late seventies.

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As a kid I lived on Long Island. There were no ATM's here at the time if this movie. To be honest there wasn't much here at all back then. Now it's just like Queens- yuck!

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Yes they did but they were located at a bank (for after hours banking), not usually found at a hotel, gas station, etc. like they are today.

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Oh, for fuck’s sake, YES, we had automated teller machines in 1983. They were external to banks in major US cities. They were not ubiquitous. Your topic asks IF we had them. We did. You do not ask how widespread they were.

You want the right answer? Ask the right question.

PS An interrogatory (question-asking) sentence ends with a “?”
not with a “.”

Yes, I am amusing myself at your expense.

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