What a beautiful, solid, no-nonsense and above all compelling sales presentation. No teleprompters (presumably), they knew their product and how to demonstrate it well..
Hi Jerry S., thank you for your feedback. From the video, looks like they had thousands of moving parts to keep functioning. I bet it was a challenge! ~ Victor, CHAP
Amazing to see the beginnings of OCR ( optical character recognition). It’s still in use on today’s checks. And its fundamentals are used in many technologies today.
Technically this was the beginnings of MICR (there was no optical component, just a magnetic dot matrix style reader), but it certainly laid down a foundation for OCR as it is a similar problem, though OCR is much more challenging due to numerous font faces, sizes, weights, and much, much, larger character sets as the complexity of accurate recognition grows substantially as the character set expands (especially very similar characters like I, l, and 1 or o, 0, O, C, and Q; etc.).
Gentlemen, if you write a check for one of our complete systems seen here today, we will process that check through the system as you watch! We even have the little machine, at the end of the line, that goes, "Ch-ching"! Great applause followed.
They should change the name to Computer History Archives Database. CHAD. My father worked with one Brazilian Airforce General and he wrote a book about computers in Brazil, in that time you couldn't import computers to Brazil (only in the late 80s)because the Military democratic government wanted that everything used in Brazil had to be made in Brazil, the airforce needed one. So they bought a old WWII tank and to operate him they also bought a Mainframe as tanks parts. Since such restrictions don't exists for military equipment they could bring one.
This has been a no-nonsense show. The IBM banking computers seemed to have made way for die-hard computing that will be done by keyboarding data, resulting in high productivity.
Most interesting at the beginning of this video at 0:38 - 0:56 are the aircraft, buses and automobiles. This looks to be at Westchester County Airport which is close to IBM's HQ in Armonk, NY. This is over 60 years ago. I wonder how many of the men in this video are alive today? No casual business dress in those days.
I think it's actually Dutchess County Airport near Poughkeepsie. The meeting was at the IBM building on Boardman Road which is now Our Lady of Lourdes High School.
I still find it an odd coincidence that for thousands of years we were modest. then Roswell happened and next thing you know we got computers jets sonar, nuclear weapons missions to the moon etc. Makes you wonder what REALLY landed in the corn field. we went from flying in Bi-planes in WWI to using primitive jets in Korean. its a little fast dont you think? i giggle when i think that my computer is 150,000 times more powerful then that entire room. doesnt take my computer a half hour to do math and call it high speed. this explains why the numbers on checks and debit cards look so weird.
Hi @KC-rd3gw, I assume the magnetic ink on the check would represent the check owner's account number and the bank's routing number. The amount written by hand would NOT be reflected in the magnetic ink. If the check was fully machine generated, it seems possible the amount could be also put on in magnetic ink, also, if required. Does that make sense?
What a beautiful, solid, no-nonsense and above all compelling sales presentation. No teleprompters (presumably), they knew their product and how to demonstrate it well..
I used to repair the 1419 sorter, as well as it's replacement in the 70s, the 3890. Brilliant machines, they were interesting to keep running!
Hi Jerry S., thank you for your feedback. From the video, looks like they had thousands of moving parts to keep functioning. I bet it was a challenge! ~ Victor, CHAP
Amazing to see the beginnings of OCR ( optical character recognition). It’s still in use on today’s checks. And its fundamentals are used in many technologies today.
Hi Plestj, yes, OCR and MICR too.
Technically this was the beginnings of MICR (there was no optical component, just a magnetic dot matrix style reader), but it certainly laid down a foundation for OCR as it is a similar problem, though OCR is much more challenging due to numerous font faces, sizes, weights, and much, much, larger character sets as the complexity of accurate recognition grows substantially as the character set expands (especially very similar characters like I, l, and 1 or o, 0, O, C, and Q; etc.).
I think this type of computer was featured in Walt Disney’s ‘The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes’ film…
The bankers were all too happy knowing these machines don't need a coffee break (☕🍩) after sorting 900 items in a minute , thanks for the video!
Just cool and incredible stuff, i really love that sound of these processing machines, very interesting stuff here.
Hi JOHneygd, Thanks for your kind words. Glad you enjoyed it. Hope you can check out our other videos too. ~ Vincent at CHAP
Gentlemen, if you write a check for one of our complete systems seen here today, we will process that check through the system as you watch! We even have the little machine, at the end of the line, that goes, "Ch-ching"! Great applause followed.
They should change the name to Computer History Archives Database.
CHAD.
My father worked with one Brazilian Airforce General and he wrote a book about computers in Brazil, in that time you couldn't import computers to Brazil (only in the late 80s)because the Military democratic government wanted that everything used in Brazil had to be made in Brazil, the airforce needed one.
So they bought a old WWII tank and to operate him they also bought a Mainframe as tanks parts. Since such restrictions don't exists for military equipment they could bring one.
This has been a no-nonsense show. The IBM banking computers seemed to have made way for die-hard computing that will be done by keyboarding data, resulting in high productivity.
Most interesting at the beginning of this video at 0:38 - 0:56 are the aircraft, buses and automobiles. This looks to be at Westchester County Airport which is close to IBM's HQ in Armonk, NY. This is over 60 years ago. I wonder how many of the men in this video are alive today? No casual business dress in those days.
Hmmm, could very well be. Thank you. ~ VK, at CHAP
I think it's actually Dutchess County Airport near Poughkeepsie. The meeting was at the IBM building on Boardman Road which is now Our Lady of Lourdes High School.
There is one company that still uses 407 machine and associated plugboards.
Is it a reader ?
Sorta.
Buck Rogers sure was really young at the time this was made.
I still find it an odd coincidence that for thousands of years we were modest. then Roswell happened and next thing you know we got computers jets sonar, nuclear weapons missions to the moon etc. Makes you wonder what REALLY landed in the corn field. we went from flying in Bi-planes in WWI to using primitive jets in Korean. its a little fast dont you think? i giggle when i think that my computer is 150,000 times more powerful then that entire room. doesnt take my computer a half hour to do math and call it high speed. this explains why the numbers on checks and debit cards look so weird.
and here i am using my iphone to deposit a cheque into my bank account
How was the amount written on the cheque translated to magnetic ink? Would that be done by hand before the cards entered the sorter reader?
Hi @KC-rd3gw, I assume the magnetic ink on the check would represent the check owner's account number and the bank's routing number. The amount written by hand would NOT be reflected in the magnetic ink. If the check was fully machine generated, it seems possible the amount could be also put on in magnetic ink, also, if required. Does that make sense?
Magneteeek.
👍
🖖 : )