Swipe Cards

The optional Magicard Rio and Tango Magstripe encoder can read or encode up to 3 tracks of digital information onto CR-80 cards incorporating a HiCo or LoCo magnetic stripe in the ANSI/ISO 7811 format. Encoding for the three tracks can use either the ISO 7811 format, or, for special application, a user specific custom format can be employed.

Because HiCo cards are much less susceptible to stray field erasure, they are to be preferred for any new application, despite their slightly higher cost.

ATM cards and credit cards normally use the older LoCo technology however, and so many existing types of installation will require the use of LoCo encoding.

Security Printing

The ISO 7811 standard uses 210 BPI (Bits Per Inch) encoding for Track 1 in the International Air Transport Association (I.A.T.A.) format of 79 alphanumeric characters, at 7 bits per character.

Track 2 uses 75 BPI encoding to store 40 numeric characters at 5 bits per character in American Banking Association (ABA) format, and Track 3 uses 210 BPI encoding of 107 numeric characters at 5 bits per character in THRIFT format.

These rather odd formats have grown up based on the historical "owners" of these tracks, but even in ISO 7811 format, the tracks can be used to store any compatible data the user requires, such as basic biometric or personal data.

If "Advanced Settings" is selected in the Driver, then all three tracks can be set to either 75 or 210 BPI with character encoding in 7,6,5,4, or 1 bit formats. Using these custom settings, more useful data can be stored on the card in a format which suits the system designer, at the expense of losing ISO compatibility.

Magstripe encoding uses relatively inexpensive media (Magstripe cards) and operates with inexpensive swipe readers. It is widely used in access control and loyalty card schemes. Unlike Barcodes, Magstripe data can be rewritten, which is a major advantage for some applications.

The frequent use of swipe readers can cause a problem with wear on the surface of dye-sub printed cards. Experience suggests that customers are often prepared to tolerate this, or to work around it by redesigning their cards, in order that they can keep card and system cost down. For those that are not, the only solution is to specify the Sicura™ laminator which protects the card with a tough 1 mil thick polyester laminate.