Magstripe

History

Magnetic recording on steel tape and wire was invented by Valdemar Poulsen in Denmark around 1900 for recording audio. In the 1950s, magnetic recording of digital computer data on plastic tape coated with iron oxide was invented. In 1960, IBM built upon the magnetic tape idea and developed a reliable way of securing magnetic stripes to plastic cards, as part of a contract with the US government for a security system. A number of International Organization for Standardization standards, ISO/IEC 7810, ISO/IEC 7811, ISO/IEC 7812, ISO/IEC 7813, ISO 8583, and ISO/IEC 4909, now define the physical properties of such cards, including size, flexibility, location of the magstripe, magnetic characteristics, and data formats. Those standards also specify characteristics for financial cards, including the allocation of card number ranges to different card issuing institutions.