oddly, the system was later adapted for cheque sorting by the federal reserve bank in new york, who took delivery of an almost identical machine in 1958, based on reading micr digits instead of bar codes. this micr-based concept was originally developed by sri international in 1952 for their similar erma project, but they did not manage to actually deliver their machine until 1959. there was some talk of developing the ferranti system into a commercial line, but it became clear that as general purpose computers fell in price, a single mass-produced model would soon be able to outperform a custom-built design, even on cost. honeywell started shopping around for just such a system at about this time.