Character recognition is the technology of using machines to identify symbols (usually alphanumeric characters) in order to express them as machine readable codes. The first commercial attempts at character recognition appeared in the 1950s when magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) was introduced into the banking industry. With the MICR system, characters and symbols are printed on checks or deposit and withdrawal slips using magnetic ink and are then put through a magnetizing process. Although MICR characters are readable by humans, often special MICR reader/sorters are used to interpret and sort the checks more rapidly. In other areas of industry during the 1950s, the keypunch, keytape and key-to-disk systems were being used for most data input. Although popular at that time, these devices were expensive, prone to errors, and not well suited for large quantities of data entry. The desire...