First off, a magnetic card is no more than a simple plastic card that has a magnetic information stored in it either by means of plain storage, or it may also contain a magnetic strip on the outside of the card. These cards look the same as just a regular credit or debit card. These cards can be used to store all different sorts of digital data, such as textual document information.

The devices designed to read the data on the magnetic cards are known as magnetic card readers. The methods used in reading in the information vary, however. Some magnetic card readers read the data on the cards by swiping the card through the device itself.

This method is currently most common, and can be seen in use in many different places. Another newer method used is where the magnetic card reader simply reads the card once its held underneath the reader. This method seems to be growing in popularity, as it is a bit easier to do as opposed to swiping.

In total, about a hundred bytes of information can be held on a magnetic card. For those of you who are not sure how much space that is,  let me explain a bit further. 100 bytes is not even equal to 1 kilobytes, and there are 1,024 kilobytes in one megabyte. An average MP3 song takes up about 3.5 megabytes of space. In comparison, you can see just how small 100 bytes of data is. Because of this, text type data and other very small types of information are really the only feasible sorts of data to be stored with this method.

The magnetic card readers use a special component in order to read the data from the card. The component is known as the read head. The read head on a magnetic card reader uses signal amplifiers and line drivers in order to read the data stored on the magnetic card. There are 3 tracks of data stored on a magnetic card, and most heads can usually read the first and second tracks at the same time, although a few can still only read them on at a time. More advanced readers can even read all three of the tracks t the same time.

All in all, a magnetic card reader can be described as a microcontroller device that is specially designed to read from a specific piece of media (magnetic cards). The program that runs the hardware is specially designed so it can pick up the data stored in the card itself, and so defines it’s general use.

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