magnetic stripe card reader software how it works

Paying With Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing. “Why has the mag stripe proved so resilient?” writes David S. The technology is now commonplace on ID cards, drivers’ licenses, security control cards and ATM cards. Initially used on transit tickets for the London underground and California’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system, the magnetic stripe enabled a person’s identifying information to be logged and transmitted immediately, securely and accurately. The magnetic stripe, when combined with point-of-sale devices, data networks and transaction-processing computers, was the catalyst that accelerated the proliferation of the global credit card industry, which now handles US$6 trillion in transactions per year.

The system was insecure, slow and prone to error. One of those sheets was then sent to a processing center, where a harried clerk would type the account and sales information into a computing system.

Each one was recorded by using what was essentially a tiny printing press to imprint the raised letters and numbers from a card onto a two-sheet, pressure-sensitive paper form. As recently as the early 1970s, credit-card transactions were more physical than digital.

Magnetic stripe card reader software how it works