There was such a sense of impending future in computer ads then. Now it’s people trying to get you to spend $1000 on a new phone so AI can tell you what kind of shit you’re likely to take tonight.
Uptons_BJs on
Hey, this is something I can actually speak to! I used to work with this – I work in financial infrastructure.
Notice how the ad says that they’re starting with magnetic recognition? This is a technology called MICR: Magnetic ink character recognition. It is a standard that is actually still in use today!
You know how at the bottom of your cheques there’s those weird looking numbers? That’s a specific font that makes sure each number uses slightly different amounts of ink to print. The ink it is printed with is magnetic, and thus, different numbers have slightly different magnetic fields.
This is how banks automatically processed cheques back before optical character recognition was a thing!
4 Comments
I think computers can read writing now.
Eat up Martha
There was such a sense of impending future in computer ads then. Now it’s people trying to get you to spend $1000 on a new phone so AI can tell you what kind of shit you’re likely to take tonight.
Hey, this is something I can actually speak to! I used to work with this – I work in financial infrastructure.
Notice how the ad says that they’re starting with magnetic recognition? This is a technology called MICR: Magnetic ink character recognition. It is a standard that is actually still in use today!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recognition
You know how at the bottom of your cheques there’s those weird looking numbers? That’s a specific font that makes sure each number uses slightly different amounts of ink to print. The ink it is printed with is magnetic, and thus, different numbers have slightly different magnetic fields.
This is how banks automatically processed cheques back before optical character recognition was a thing!