A credit card imprinter, colloquially known as a ZipZap machine or Knuckle Buster, is a manual device used by merchants to record

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

transactions before the advent of

payment terminal A payment terminal, also known as a point of sale (POS) terminal, credit card terminal, EFTPOS terminal (or by the older term as PDQ terminal which stands for "Process Data Quickly"), is a device which interfaces with payment cards to make electro ...

s. The device works by placing the customer’s credit card into a bed in the machine, then layering

carbon paper Carbon paper (originally carbonic paper) consists of sheets of paper which create one or more copies simultaneously with the creation of an original document when inscribed by a typewriter or ballpoint pen. History In 1801, Pellegrino Turri, ...

forms over the card. A bar is slid back and forth over the paper to create an impression of the embossed card data and the merchant information on the imprinter. The customer signs these paper forms, with one copy as the customer receipt and the other kept by the merchant.

History

These devices were used from the advent of

payment card Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and ma ...

s until the 1980s when electronic payment terminals started to replace them. However they continued to be used well into the 2000s for places where network access was difficult, such as mobile locations like taxis and airplanes.

References

{{Credit cards Merchant services Credit card terminology Banking technology

History

See also

References