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Porter suggested using the DATAR computer design as the basis for a sorting system. Following Lewis' suggestion, a new reader would sort the mail on the basis of the pattern of stripes on the letter provided by an operator who simply typed in the address without attempting to route it. Ferranti suggested a fluorescent ink instead of a conductive one. Routing information would be placed on the magnetic drum, which could store thousands of routes and could be easily changed on demand. Levy, however, was interested in using an optical memory system being developed at IBM by a team including [[Louis Ridenour]] (see [[Automatic Language Translator]] for details) for storage of the routing information. Turnbull overruled Levy, and on 10 August 1954 he signed a contract with Ferranti for the '''Electronic Information Handling System''' using a drum memory.<ref>Vardalas, pg. 114</ref>
In February 1955 Levy announced the system to the world at a conference in the U.S., claiming that it was able to process 200,000 letters per hour. For comparison, the largest Transnorma systems could handle about 15,000 letters an hour. Although the computer system did appear to be able to meet this claim, they were having serious problems with the non-computer portions of the project.<ref name=v115>Vardalas, pg. 115</ref>
===Route Reference Computer===
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