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On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 12:13:55 -0800, "Calif Bill"
wrote:

the better sorter for handling the checks was the NCR 407. The better
reader was the IBM. B of A used the IBM's for the online reading and the
NCR sorters for the offline reading.
Makes sense to me.
It's that capture pass where you do all the photos and writing on the
check. That is a lot of hardware to be maintaining just for the fine
sort where you are just breaking out the checks and assembling the
statement pack. 3890 are faster but they can be tough on the check out
around pass 5.. Your maintenance cost was also based on item count.
You want that speed when you capture the check to catch the daily cash
letter to the fed so you can start collecting the float. The cutoff
was around 9 PM as I recall and after that you lose a day's interest.
They get pretty cranky if a machine is down at 7 or 8. ;-)

Nope, the NCR 407's were lots faster, just that the IBM's read crappy checks
better. Most of the writing on the checks was done in the proof machine,
NCR's 450, do not know the IBM one. That wrote the check's MICR amount and
stamped the back of the check and balanced the checks against the deposit
slip. The NCR 407 was the one hooked up to the mainframe to read in the
checks and then sort them.