"half-dollar"/"50 cent piece" Was: Recovering the ROM of an IBM 5100 using OCR

[Liam Proven]

On Mon, 1 Jul 2019 at 14:01, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> US currency is the most most seriously counterfeited in the world, due
> to being useful almost anywhere. This is why the bills are not very
> distinctive - you are supposed to look at them. Most counterfeits are
> good, but not good enough, and can (and will) stick out in a batch of
> bills - the might just look "funny" or "odd". Have millions of eyes
> looking for the counterfeits ever day of the year is actually quite
> effective. I once worked at a bank, and the number of bogus bills that
> the tellers would get every month was very significant - and most
> actually stuck out like a sore thumb!.

That's kinda a good point. :-) Fake bills aren't a big problem in
Europe in my experience, but I have seen them and it does happen.

> Mind you, I think US currency is very ugly, compared to many other
> currencies, but I see the point of the design.

Personally I don't hugely care about that. I remember when the Euro
became common a lot of people thought they were too modern, too
colourful, etc. Comments such as "it looks like Monopoly money" were
common. But we've all got used to them now.

> Yes, that is the case all around, for the entire population.

Well, yes, but more so. As in, paying for 1 beer, or other small
transactions that for most sighted people wouldn't be worth it.

> That is mostly the case here as well. Most under-40 people do not have
> a checkbook anymore. In my business, I get maybe two payments per year
> with checks - well under 1/10 of a percent of total payments.

That doesn't jar with the experiences of my American friends over
here, who have to send cheques to the US for processing, get cheques
in the mail and send images back, stuff like that. A friend sends
photos of cheques to his sister for her to process for him for small
stuff "back home". It seems to be quite an everyday thing.

> There are still a few institutions and older folks that still use
> checks (like the annoying people that hold up the line in a grocery
> store, writing out a check), so the image deposit system is just an
> effort to cut down the foot traffic to banks.

And freighting trucks full of cheques from bank to bank, I thought?


> More convenience for
> customers, and less labor costs for banks. It is handy to have, but
> really, not many people use it much, simply because getting a paper
> check is just a rare occurrence these days.

Hmm. It certainly is for me, but not from what I hear for others...

-- 
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