h a l f b a k e r y"More like a cross between an onion, a golf ball, and a roman multi-tiered arched aquaduct."
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The magnetic strips on credit cards, loyalty cards, and such never work for long. When they give out, the person behind the counter usually ends up typing out the raised numbers on the card.
It would be easy to make something that felt the raised numbers on the cards as they were swiped. You would
only need three feelers at different heights.
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I don't think this would be easy to do and seems a bit Irish anyhow. I find that credit cards work perfectly for years if you treat 'em right. |
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More and more card applications are moving to contactless chips now, so mag strips are going to be pretty much redundant before long. |
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I guess I mean "non-optimal in the logic department". No offence meant - I'm pairt oirish meself. |
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// I don't think this would be easy to do and seems a bit Irish anyhow. I find that credit cards work perfectly for years if you treat 'em right. // |
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You lie, hu-mon ! Mine "swipe out" in just a few months ...... |
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Maybe there could be a little pattern of holes punched through the raised numbers that could be read by an optical scanner. |
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NB Category suggestion - "Public: Money" ? |
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As [waugs] pointed out, the mag strip contains more than just the card number. What problem are we trying to solve here? If it's worn-out mag strips, you can forget any method of reading the embossed numbers. The (baked) solution is to put the mag-strip's data in a chip. |
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Hey, hey, hey, we aren't trying to read all the data on the magnetic strip - there is about 2k bits on that - enough for a small JPEG of the user on that, or a good compressed signature. Just the raised numbers that the cards already have, which is what people type in anyway. |
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That's the way it used to be done |
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