In its 250 years of history, the US Postal System has been the driver of diverse areas of technology and innovation. It was at one point, more than the military, an early user of aviation. It has been a leading innovator in the advancement of optical character recognition (OCR) that we take for granted today. And on this day in 1964, Mr. Zip was introduced to the nation. He was, for over 20 years, the character who would represent the introduction, some months before his debut, of postal zip codes. Familiar today, these five digit (becoming 9 digit in 1983) codes would help increase accuracy and speed of mail delivery by assigning a systematic code number to each post office in the country. It was a great step forward in postal efficiency, and would later aid in delivery automation that continues to today. So happy birthday, Mr. Zip! Your place in the history of this country will never be forgotten.
No comments:
Post a Comment