1966: The MECHANISATION of the POST OFFICE | Tomorrow's World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

[@brianmmacu]

I don't normally get queasy about anything but eating, while watching that opening sequence of close ups of people licking stamps put me off my food It was like a horror movie

[@chriswalford4161]

What a brilliant bit of cinematography!

[@puffypuff9779]

Were you eating ox tongue ?

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Me too..! But at least stamps didn't have that stupid extra bit on the side of them we've got now, still haven't worked out what that's for. And they were still reasonably priced. I was a postie in the 70's and there was still a difference between first and second class. We did two deliveries a day, the first was just 1st class letters, no packets or parcels, and was generally complete by 9.30am at the latest. Then after a tea break we did the second delivery, which was everything else; 2nd class letters and small packets/parcels. That was usually done by 12.30, which was just as well, as that's when we stopped getting paid 🤣 These days it can be 3 or 4 in the afternoon sometimes before we get a delivery. And the pillar box across the street has ONE collection a day, at 9.30am..! How stupid is that..? No wonder "1st class" letters don't get to their destination the next day 🤬

[@CyclingSteve]

It was excessive.

[@FoxInClogs]

Ingenious, these muggles!

[@MrMann0123]

Oh. Wow. The start of Postcodes. Amazing revolution

[@onlyme219]

those machines are truly amazing

[@dawnyWestScotland]

Just loved the old footage, and Lassie the dog too! 💙🐶

[@mikebeatstsb7030]

Love this stuff ..fascinating

[@JohnHonda101]

Good to see all the old cars in the street at the end.

[@brianbrino4310]

I started using my tongue for usage of stamps in my first office job and then upgraded to Canada Post sorting letters and parcels! Automation must be in more advanced stages nowadays!

[@Charstring]

I worked in the Royal Mail about 14 years after this film was made - we had a SEG/ALF which was great, but the newer generation of machines was much less sophisticated and a big step backward in technology. We were told that the new machines had the advantage of being dirt cheap...

[@chap666ish]

Blimey. I'd almost forgotten those stamp vending machines at the start!

[@thechosenone3197]

Fascinating!

[@AtheistOrphan]

And then came Fujitsu.

[@DJWESG1]

What came first, fujitsu or the error?

[@videogamebookreviews]

Those tongues are making some strange sounds 0:14 - 0:37

[@Mkbshg8]

splendid

[@yaosio]

It wouldn't be until the 1990's that character recognition got really good with our old friend the neural network.

[@BeesWaxRacing]

When I was at Royal Mail in the early 90's we were only just starting to replace all of that kit...and OCR was still dreadful.

[@TopOfThePopsFan]

Ah, the Post Office Research Centre.

[@spango1]

What could possibly go wrong ?

[@MrMann0123]

I remember "stamp-lickers" being used as a term by some teachers for some students.

[@TinLeadHammer]

Using standard-sized envelops with preprinted grid for postal code is much simpler than recognition of handwriting.

[@bonnetdedouche437]

Looks like it was shot on a 1960s version of a GoPro! God help you if you were sending a dinner service to Auntie Marjorie for Christmas and it went through that sorting drum!

[@emilyb9222]

Do they still use this system in England? Even the location codes?

[@harri7179]

We have "postcodes" which are always the last line of the address. They're usually 1 or 2 letters for county/region, then 1 or 2 numbers for village/town/suburb, then a number and 2 more letters which narrow it down to an area as small as 1-20ish buildings depending on location. Some random examples: B30 1JR (Birmingham) NE12 8BU (Newcastle) W4 5YA (Western London) CF72 8YT (Cardiff)

[@thelastdetail1]

They missed out the machine that opened all the birthday cards and shook the money out.

[@clavichord]

It'll never catch on 😂

[@ANDREWLewis-p9j]

Soon this history will be all that is left of the post office 😢

[@RinoaL]

We really didn't need that opening shot of all the tongues licking stamps. Gross.

[@unnamedchannel1237]

It was great , you didn’t like it ?

[@itemushmush]

Amazing throwback here! Love to see the crude attempts for handwriting recognition at 5:33. Now it is almost the first thing you learn when you explore AI and Machine Learning

[@itemushmush]

well, the digit portion of the segment at least

[@liaminwales]

It's laying the footwork for today, if it's not been done I hope someone makes a book on the history of text recognition.

[@vintagethrifter2114]

​@@liaminwalesthen you can use text recognition to read it to you.

[@vintagethrifter2114]

​@@itemushmushThe United States Postal Service already had digit optical character recognition in 1965. There's a USPS video on it from 1965 on KZbin.

[@danorthsidemang3834]

RIP ALF

[@SigmundJaehn]

The stamps looked so pretty. Why did we lose the floral border round the queen?

[@HikikomoriDev]

OCR before it was OCR in the conventional sense.

[@thomasm1964]

Ah for the days when postmen took pride on their appearance.

[@TheWanderingFire]

That opening sequence is just gross.

[@annierosha5946]

And yet today a person is lucky to get a snail mail letter in their box once or twice a month. Email really killed off snail mail, didn't it?

[@TestGearJunkie.]

The huge increase in the price of postage didn't help. Or the reduction in service. We used to get two deliveries a day, both before around 12.30 to 1pm. Now we only get one, and sometimes here it can be 3 or even 4 in the afternoon before it turns up.

[@AndrewChapman-p9c]

After the postage stamps having been detached by means of the post office clerk's fingers and being placed on the counter and subsequently having to lick the stamps.....

[@watchmeplaygames1]

The amount of bacteria your breathing in with each breath on this planet.. And your worried about a stamp? Go read up what's on your toothbrush.....

[@1969Kismet]

Using a sponge. That's the way to do it.

[@dawnyWestScotland]

@@watchmeplaygames1 I watched Paddington Bear last night and he used a toothbrush to clean his ears 😆

[@unnamedchannel1237]

@@dawnyWestScotlandthe outside of his ears or the inside of the holes ?

[@dawnyWestScotland]

@@unnamedchannel1237 Both 😆

[@pureboxofscartcables]

That's considerably more sophisticated than Amazon nearly sixty years later.

[@DJWESG1]

If you ever wondered how they got hold of all our dna..

[@unnamedchannel1237]

At the time this was filmed ? They didn’t even know what DNA was for atleast 19 years

[@beatlebrian4404]

The price of stamps these days! 1d. it makes you wonder how much they will cost in the future doesn't it?