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From: rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: AT&T Universal Card is Not Two Cards in One
Message-ID: <12987@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 2 Oct 90 21:32:56 GMT
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Reply-To: rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees)
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 709, Message 3 of 9


In article <12758@accuvax.nwu.edu>, "C. Harald Koch" <chk@alias.uucp>
writes:
  
>In article <12368@accuvax.nwu.edu> monty@sunne.east.sun.com (Monty
>Solomon - Temp Consultant) writes:
  
>> Well, that seems like an awfully easy thing to rectify with no new
>> technology whatsoever: just put two magnetic stripes on the back of
>> the card, one with the bankcard data and one with the phonecard data.
  
It seems to me, therefore, that the easiest solution (and the one that
should have been used in the first place) is to put the Calling Card
information on one of the other tracks. Then there is no ambiguity;
the card is both optically and magnetically a credit card and a phone
card.

Another problem with the two-stripe solution is that the second stripe
would fall in the same area as the embossing.

Here is the ANSI standard, in case anyone is interested.  This info is
a little (ten years or so!) out of date. 

                           ---------------

  From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
  Newsgroups: net.misc
  Subject: Banking Card Data Formats
  Date: Mon, 10-Oct-83 21:20:51 EDT
  Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles

Sometime ago, there was a request for information regarding the data
format of the magstripes on banking cards.  At the time, I was unable
to find an old message of mine that I sent to Arpa sometime back which
contained that information.

However, I was finally able to locate the original message, and I have
extracted the information requested...


             AUTOMATIC TRANSACTION MAGNETIC STRIPE FORMAT
	     --------------------------------------------
    	             ANSI X4.16 (1976)  ISO 3554
			

   -------------------------------------------------  <-- top edge of card
					.223"
   -------------------------------------------------  <-----
   TRACK 1	IATA			.110"		|
   -------------------------------------------------       |
   TRACK 2	ABA			.110"	      mag stripe
   -------------------------------------------------	|
   TRACK 3	THRIFT			.110"		|
   -------------------------------------------------  <-----

TRACK 1: developed by the International Air Transportation Assoc. (IATA),
         contains alphanumeric info for automation of airline ticketing
         or other reservation database applications.

TRACK 2: developed by the American Bankers Assoc. (ABA), contains numeric
	 info for automation of financial transactions.
	 This track is also used by most systems which require an 
         identification number and a minimum of other control info.

TRACK 3: developed by the Thrift Industry, contains info, some of which
 	 is intended to be changed (re-recorded) with each transaction,
	 e.g. cash dispensers which can operate "offline".


	    density in bits	char length in bits	info content
	        per inch	including parity bit
            ---------------     --------------------    ------------ 

TRACK 1:         210			7	   79 alphanumeric chars
TRACK 2:	  75			5	   40 numeric chars
TRACK 3:  	 210			5	  107 numeric chars


Information is read right to left beginning with the Start Sentinel
(SS) character located at the right edge of the card.

TRACK 1:

LRC | ES | DISCRETIONARY DATA | FS | NAME (26 char max.) | SS
(coded char set: 6 bit subset of ASCII plus parity)		

TRACK 2:

LRC | ES | DISCRETIONARY DATA | FS | ACCOUNT NUMBER | SS
(coded char set: BCD 4 bit subset plus parity)

TRACK3:

LRC | ES | DISCRET. DATA | AS | USE AND SECURITY DATA | FS | ACCOUNT #
 | SS (coded char set: BCD 4 bit subset plus parity)


SS	Start Sentinel
FS	Field Separator
AS	Account Separator
ES	End Sentinel
LRC	Longitudinal Redundancy Check

For error detection an odd parity bit is included in each character
and a longitudinal redundancy check (LRC) character is encoded after
the End Sentinel (ES).

   --Lauren--