Any ppl experienced with magnetic strip readers...?

[crazylegs]

Hi all,

I may soon be opening up a local PC hardware / repairs store and am considering Electronic Point Of Sale (EPOS) possibilities...

One idea that i had whilst looking at the options was also to be able to make security swipe cards for the storeroom that would only work for short durations...

I have seen little card readers that plug in between PC and Keyboard that are used to take payments via Debit/ Credit cards... but have also seen it mentioned that you can use the same machines to create ID cards!

Was wondering if any ppl have experience of these systems could point me in the direction of some decent (& cheap!) software?

thanks all

 

[PurdueRy]

Yes, the can make cards too because that's how gift cards are initialized. However, I think it has to do with reading a cards encoded number into the system and not actually putting any information on the card itself.

 

[crazylegs]

Oh yeh... c what u mean...

 

[Tu13erhead]

They use those here all over the university camus. IIRC they cost upward of $1000 per scanner-machine-thingy.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: Tu13erhead
They use those here all over the university camus. IIRC they cost upward of $1000 per scanner-machine-thingy.

Credit card machines might cost that much, but you can get magnetic strip readers for less than $50.

 

[bruceb]

I looked into them a few weeks ago .. they run about $700 or so fror ones
that can Read & Write to the cards ... I do not know if the primary difference
between being able to Read & Write is Software only or if the Hardware
in the Reader / Writer unit is somehow different

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: bruceb
I looked into them a few weeks ago .. they run about $700 or so fror ones
that can Read & Write to the cards ... I do not know if the primary difference
between being able to Read & Write is Software only or if the Hardware
in the Reader / Writer unit is somehow different

I'd think that the hardware is different.

That said... there are services that can create cards for you, if you aren't going to be creating that many. Then you can just use software to control what the cards to at which times.