Patent ID: 7163148
Filing Date: 2007-01-16
Classification: G06K,G11B

Abstract:
1. A magnetic stripe card reader for reading a magnetic stripe on a card having at least one track of magnetically stored information stored thereon as a stream of encoded discrete data bits separated by bit times, comprising: a magnetic head for reading the magnetic pulses as the magnetic stripe is passed thereby to output a time varying analog signal; a data converter incorporated on an integrated circuit for receiving and converting the raw analog signal to a digital time series of digital values representing the time varying analog value of the magnetic pulses; and a processor incorporated on said integrated circuit for processing said digital output of said data converter and operable to: determine potential bit boundaries in the encoded data bits to define the digital values thereof, recover timing information from said digital time series to discriminate the bit times between data bits, and determine the value of each data bit during each bit time to provide a stream of extracted data bits.