the blue boxes at the post office are despatch boxes.
what are the blue boxes at the post office?
despatch box
unlike canadian mailboxes, which were painted red, u.s. mail collection boxes were originally painted in red or green. beginning in 1909, all mail collection boxes were painted a dark green to avoid confusion with emergency and fire equipment. dark green gave way to olive drab green after world war i, when the u.s. army donated a large supply of olive drab green paint to the post office. olive drab green subsequently became the standard colour for all u.s. mail collection boxes until 1955. on 4 july 1955, postmaster general arthur summerfield announced that the post office would begin painting all mail collection boxes in red, white, and blue to make them easily identifiable. subsequently, the post office began painting mail collection boxes in red and blue, with white lettering.
post box
wozniak had designed a low-cost digital "blue box" to generate the necessary tones to manipulate the telephone network, allowing free long-distance calls. jobs decided that they could make money selling it. the clandestine sales of the illegal "blue boxes" went well and perhaps planted the seed in jobs's mind that electronics could be both fun and profitable. jobs, in a 1994 interview, recalled that it took six months for him and wozniak to figure out how to build the blue boxes. jobs said that if not for the blue boxes, there would have been no apple. he states it showed them that they could take on large companies and beat them.
steve jobs