Printer, Federal Express COSMOS Tracking System, ASTRA
date: label: date made
content: 1991
notes: label: Description
content: This is a Federal Express ASTRA printer. It was a critical part of FedEx’s Customers, Operations, and Services Master On-line System (COSMOS) used to track packages and confirm deliveries. Customer agents, couriers, and sorting personnel used the SuperTracker to scan barcodes on packages as they moved through the Federal Express system. Providing information about a package’s location, status, and movement became an integral part of delivery companies, with every major carrier implementing a package tracking system.
label: Description
content: The instrument has a black plastic cover, metal and plastic parts, and a cloth and leather strap and handle. There is a roll of labels for printing stored in plastic inside the case. The battery-operated device is marked in front: FEDEX, Ut us narjed on a label on the side: FEDEX (/) ASTRA PRINTER No. 191E4477. Also marked on label: MADE IN JAPAN.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Carl Niehls, “Custodial Package Tracking at Federal Express,” in <i>Managing Innovation: Cases from the Services Industries</i>, ed. Bruce R. Guile and James Brian Quinn (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988), 57–81.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Japan: Japan
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Federal Express
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1993.0228.02
label: catalog number
content: 1993.0228.02
label: accession number
content: 1993.0228
objectType: label: Object Name
content: printer
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 cm x 21 cm x 6.7 cm; 2 3/4 in x 8 9/32 in x 2 5/8 in