in 1956, the company received a contract from the canadian post office to develop an electronic mail sorting system, which they delivered later that year. the system used a hard-wired transistorized computer that stored a table of postal codes on a magnetic drum. operators were presented with envelopes and typed in the postal code, which their typewriter printed onto the envelope as a bar code in fluorescent ink. the sorting system would then read the bar code and automatically route it sort it. the system was a complete success.