How magnetic strip works

The first official documented use of magstripes on cards is from the London Transit Authority who, in the early s, installed magstripes on cards for the London Underground. However, one of the most important dates for magstripes was , where the standards were established for credit cards which were first issued in and magnetic stripes became used. These cards can have greater capacity than magstripe cards and have have broader information carrying capacities, that can be added or deleted, as well as being able to accomplish some more complicated tasks such as data encryption. Future uses of the magstripe could broaden into official documents such as passports, and one-swipe cards a magnetic stripe card that has multiple purposes are starting to become used more and more on college campuses throughout the country. Magstripes are used in a lot of different markets in modern day living. Within these specific markets there are a vast variety of different types of magstripe cards.

Follow-up on this answer. Related Questions. Still Curious? A magnetic strip is a thin layer of magnetizable material which is placed on credit cards and driver's licenses and bank ATM cards and train tickets and hotel room keys and lots of other places. I've even seen paper telephone cards in Italy which use a magnetic strip on the back. The magnetic strip is a lot like a tiny bit of magnetic recording tape, like that found in a music cassette or a videotape, except it is glued to the card.

The magstripe is made up of tiny iron-based magnetic particles in a plastic-like film. Each particle is really a very tiny bar magnet about 20 millionths of an inch long. The magstripe on the back of the card is very similar to a piece of cassette tape fastened to the back of a card. See How Tape Recorders Work.

The chances are pretty good that at some point today you will use a card that has a magnetic strip on it. Your credit card, your office ID, or maybe your hotel room card. Everybody uses them, but have you ever wondered how they work? What is a magnetic stripe card? The first magnetic stripe cards were created in the s when an engineer at IBM found a way to combine magnetic tape, which was commonly used in mainframe computers for data backup, with a plastic card substrate.