From: catalyst@netcom.com (Scott Collins)
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 16:17:37 PDT
To: Matthew J Ghio <mg5n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Photocopying money
Message-ID: <9310192316.AA26432@newton.apple.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


  >It's the same chip that's used in vending machines to scan dollar bills.

To my knowledge, vending machines don't do optical recognition.  They have
a pair of photo-sensors, it's true, but these are used in conjunction with
tractors only to measure the bill.  Another sensor decodes the magnetic ink
to determine validity and denomination.

I saw this demonstrated recently on a PBS science program.


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