Royal Mail installed 46 Optical Character Recognition (OCR) machines between 1987 and 1991; each OCR reader could deal with up to 30,000 items of mail per hour. They automatically read and analysed the typed or printed addresses on letters and printed the translation of the Postcode as a series of phosphor dots. Much simpler machines can then read these dots at later stages in the letter’s progress.
1700s The initial declaration of love – the beginnings of Valentine’s Day
1800s John Henniker Heaton (1848–1914)
1900s Letter drafted by Leo Szilard and signed by Albert Einstein to Franklin D Roosevelt (August 1939)
1800s Telegrams
1900s Postwomen during the First World War (20 January 1917)
1900s POCO promoting postcode usage