The figure and most of the rest of the data on this page is from the
Virtual Card
websight.( I put it up here becuase I ended up looking at it a lot and
occasionally have troubble accessing thier web pages.)
Physical Layout of Magnetic Cards
Track 1
|
Length
|
79 characters including start sentinel, end sentinel and LRC character
|
|
Bit density
|
8.27 bits per mm (210 bits per inch)
|
|
Bit Encoding
|
6 bits plus 1 parity (odd) bit. (64 different characters)
|
|
Track Encoding
|
ALPHA
|
|
Start Sentinel
|
%
|
|
End Sentinel
|
?
|
|
Separator
|
^
|
Note: Only upper case characters are allowed in track 1
Track 2
|
Length
|
40 characters including start sentinel, end sentinel and LRC
|
|
Bit density
|
2.95 bits per mm (75 bits per inch)
|
|
Bit Encoding
|
4 bits plus 1 parity (odd) bit. (16 different characters)
|
|
Track Encoding
|
BCD
|
|
Start Sentinel
|
;
|
|
End Sentinel
|
?
|
|
Separator
|
=
|
Track 3
|
Length
|
107 characters including start sentinel, end sentinel and LRC
|
|
Bit density
|
8.27 bits per mm (210 bits per inch)
|
|
Bit Encoding
|
4 bits plus 1 parity (odd) bit. (16 different characters)
|
|
Track Encoding
|
BCD
|
|
Start Sentinel
|
;
|
|
End Sentinel
|
?
|
|
Separator
|
=
|
Email -- joeboy@hhhh.org
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