CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

MAGNETIC CARD STRIPE/READER TECHNOLOGY Magnetic card reader is a small device that are typically designed to read the digital data present on the rectangular shaped object called Magnetic .These cards have embed magnetic stripe and also available with the exterior. The popularity of these tiny memory devices increased the importance of the magnetic card readers. Magnetic card readers are capable of reading any kind of stored information such as MS word file. AVI and MP3 files etc. All you need is to insert the magnetic card in the slot provided in the magnetic card reader. Its an electronic device which gets active when plugged with the provided port in the CPU of the computer. Magnetic card readers are now available with different characteristics according to the specification of the data such as memory cards for digital Cameras, Mobile memory cards. A magnetic stripe card is a type of card capable of storing data by modifying the magnetism of tiny iron-based magnetic particles on a band of magnetic material on the card. The magnetic stripe, sometimes called swipe card or magstripe, is read by physical contact and swiping past a magnetic reading head. The process of attaching a magnetic stripe to a plastic card was invented by IBM in 1960 under a contract with the US government for a security system. Forrest Parry, an IBM Engineer, had the idea of securing a piece of magnetic tape, the predominant storage medium at the time, to a plastic card base. He became frustrated because every adhesive he tried produced unacceptable results. The tape strip either warped or its

characteristics were affected by the adhesive, rendering the tape strip unusable. After a frustrating day in the laboratory, trying to get the right adhesive, he came home with several pieces of magnetic tape and several plastic cards. As he walked in the door at home, his wife Dorothea was ironing and watching TV. She immediately saw the frustration on his face and asked what was wrong. He explained the source of his frustration: inability to get the tape to "stick" to the plastic in a way that would work. She said, "Here, let me try the iron." She did and the problem was solved. The heat of the iron was just high enough to bond the tape to the card.

Working of Magnetic Card Reader - How magnetic card reader works

The working of the magnetic card reader is quite simple they make use of the particular component to read the stored information in the magnetic memory cards. This component is known as read head .Basically card reader is the device which uses microcontroller technology in its construction. This read head have line drivers and amplifier for handling the signal frequency while reading the data. All the recent magnetic card readers have the F/2F bit circuits installed for recovery which is responsible for tracking the every bit of the data stored in the memory card in the form of bytes. The interface to this device is provided by the host controller. Advance coding techniques and efficient sampling for the drivers can be effective to make the reading process successful. The data is stored in the form of tracks in the cards. Specifically card has two r three tracks with different bit and character specification. Card reader mostly has the capability to red first and second tracks simultaneously .some of the latest version can read three of them at a time. Linear and sequential data reading is performed as required by the user.

After head the other component is the oscillator which is responsible for handling the clocks and timers for the recovery of the data. it decides hen to enable and disable the timers and prompt the user that data retrieval ahs been completed. Every single bit is recovered individually and is assigned specific period by the timer which is headed by the oscillator. the magnetic card readers reads data in forward direction which is also considered as the drawback of these wonderful devices because sometimes it takes time to recover all the data.

Three methods for reading the card:

Swipe reader - You swipe the card through a long, narrow slot that is open at each end.

Insert reader - You insert the card into a small receptacle that is just large enough to accommodate the card.

Proximity reader - You hold the card in front of the blank face of the reader.

Data Storage in Magnetic Cards

Data is always present in the bytes on three provided tracks of magnetic memory cards. 64 bit data character set is used for each track first track ha the highest density of data storage and it come first when magnetic card reader reads the data. Approximately 210 bit per inch is the average density for the first track. Second track has comparatively lower density usually of 75 to 210 bpi. All the tracks has the encoding format which grants the least significant bit and the parity bit at last to show the on and off state of the card. Advantages of Magnetic card reader Easy to carry. Small in size. Can read tons of data stored in memory cards. No individual slots required. It is easily fixable in the USB slot and also has multiple card slots on them for variant magnetic cards.

They are capable of reading almost all the formats of the data like documents,MP3,exe, audio/video files, avi etc.

Cards with a magnetic-encoded stripe running along the back side are typically referred to as magnetic stripe cards, and are used in a vast number of banking, stored-value, and other financial applications. Credit, ATM, and debit cards are all typically magnetic stripe cards, sometimes with a smartcard chip embedded as well. Many gift cards, security or room-key cards, and

stored-value cards used for gaming, photocopier use, and public transit are other examples. With a maximum capacity of approximately 160 bytes when standard ISO formats are used, these magnetic stripe cards do not typically store a large amount of data. Compared to smart cards or portable flash memory drives, the storage capacity of magnetic stripe cards is sufficient for the financial and banking applications for which the cards are most commonly used. Magnetic stripe cards are, moreover, rugged, inexpensive, require no internal power source, and relatively straightforward to read.

Mag Stripe Formats There are three tracks on the magstripe. Each track is .110-inch wide. The ISO/IEC standard 7811, which is used by banks, specifies:

Track one is 210 bits per inch (bpi), and holds 79 six-bit plus parity bit read-only characters.

Track two is 75 bpi, and holds 40 four-bit plus parity bit characters. Track three is 210 bpi, and holds 107 four-bit plus parity bit characters.

Your credit card typically uses only tracks one and two. Track three is a read/write track (that includes an encrypted PIN, country code, currency units, amount authorized), but its usage is not standardized among banks. The information on track one is contained in two format A, which is reserved for proprietary use of the card issuer, and B, which includes the following:

Start sentinel - 1 character Format code="B" - 1 character (alpha only) Primary account number - up to 19 characters Separator - 1 character Country code - 3 characters

Name - 2-26 characters Separator - 1 character Expiration date or separator - 4 characters or 1 character Discretionary data - enough characters to fill out maximum record length(79 characters total)

End sentinel - 1 character Longitudinal Redundancy Check (LRC), a form of computed check character -- 1 character

The format for track two, developed by the banking industry, is as follows:

Start sentinel - 1 character Primary account number - up to 19 characters Separator - 1 character Country code - 3 characters Expiration date or separator - 4 characters or 1 character Discretionary data - enough characters to fill out maximum record length (40 characters total)

LRC - 1 character

Magnetic Stripe Coercivity Magstripes come in two main varieties: high-coercivity (HiCo) at 4000 Oe and low-coercivity (LoCo) at 300 Oe but it is not infrequent to have intermediate values at 2750 Oe. High-coercivity magstripes are harder to erase, and therefore are appropriate for cards that are frequently used or that need to have a long life. Low-coercivity magstripes require a lower amount of magnetic energy to record, and hence the card writers are much cheaper than machines which are capable of recording high-coercivity magstripes. A card

reader can read either type of magstripe, and a high-coercivity card writer may write both high and low-coercivity cards (most have two settings, but writing a LoCo card in HiCo may sometimes work), while a low-coercivity card writer may write only low-coercivity cards. In practical terms, usually low coercivity magnetic stripes are a light brown color, and high coercivity stripes are nearly black; exceptions include a proprietary silver-colored formulation on transparent American Express cards. High coercivity stripes are resistant to damage from most magnets likely to be owned by consumers. Low coercivity stripes are easily damaged by even a brief contact with a magnetic purse strap or fastener. Because of this, virtually all bank cards today are encoded on high coercivity stripes despite a slightly higher per-unit cost. Magnetic stripe cards are used in very high volumes in the mass transit sector, replacing paper based tickets with either a directly applied magnetic slurry or hot foil stripe. Slurry applied stripes are generally less expensive to produce and are less resilient but are suitable for cards meant to be disposed after a few uses.

VISUAL BASIC Visual Basic (VB) is a third-generation event-driven programming

language and integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft for its COM programming model first released in 1991. Visual Basic is designed to be relatively easy to learn and use. Visual Basic was derived from BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects ,Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and

objects. Scripting

languages such

as VBA and VBScript are

syntactically

similar to Visual Basic, but perform differently. A programmer can put together an application using

the components provided with Visual Basic itself. Programs written in Visual Basic can also use the Windows API, but doing so requires external function declarations. Though the program has received criticism for its perceived faults, from version 3 Visual Basic was a runaway commercial success, and many companies offered third party controls greatly extending its functionality. The final release was version 6 in 1998. Microsoft's extended support ended in March 2008 and the designated successor was Visual Basic .NET (now known simply as Visual Basic).

Language of Visual Basic Like the BASIC programming language, Visual Basic was designed to be easily learned and used by beginner programmers. The language not only allows programmers to create simple GUI applications, but can also develop complex applications. Programming in VB is a combination of visually arranging components or controls on a form, specifying attributes and actions of those components, and writing additional lines of code for more functionality. Since default attributes and actions are defined for the components, a simple program can be created without the programmer

having to write many lines of code. Performance problems were experienced by earlier versions, but with faster computers and native code compilation this has become less of an issue. Although programs can be compiled into native code executables from version 5 onwards, they still require the presence of runtime libraries of approximately 1 MB in size. This runtime is included by default in Windows 2000 and later, but for earlier versions of Windows like 95/98/NT it must be distributed together with the executable. Forms are created using drag-and-drop techniques. A tool is used to place controls (e.g., text boxes, buttons, etc.) on the form (window). Controls have attributes and event handlers associated with them. Default values are provided when the control is created, but may be changed by the programmer. Many attribute values can be modified during run time based on user actions or changes in the environment, providing a dynamic application. For example, code can be inserted into the form resize event handler to reposition a control so that it remains centered on the form, expands to fill up the form, etc. By inserting code into the event handler for a keypress in a text box, the program can automatically translate the case of the text being entered, or even prevent certain characters from being inserted. Visual Basic can create executables (EXE files), ActiveX controls, or DLL files, but is primarily used to develop Windows applications and to interface database systems. Dialog boxes with less functionality can be used to provide pop-up capabilities. Controls provide the basic functionality of the application, while programmers can insert additional logic within the appropriate event handlers. For example, a drop-down combination box will automatically display its list and allow the user to select any element. An event handler is called when an item is selected, which can then execute additional code created by the programmer to perform some action based on which element was selected, such as populating a related list. Alternatively, a Visual Basic component can have no user interface, and instead provide ActiveX objects to

other programs via Component Object Model (COM). This allows for serverside processing or an add-in module. The runtime recovers unused memory using reference counting which depends on variables passing out of scope or being set to "Nothing", resulting in the very common problem of memory leaks. There is a large library of utility objects, and the language provides basic object oriented support. Unlike many other programming languages, Visual Basic is generally not case sensitive, although it will transform keywords into a standard case configuration and force the case of variable names to conform to the case of the entry within the symbol table. String comparisons are case sensitive by default. The Visual Basic compiler is shared with other Visual Studio languages (C, C++), but restrictions in the IDE do not allow the creation of some targets (Windows model DLLs) and threading models.

Characteristics of Visual Basic Visual Basic has the following traits which differ from C-derived languages:

Statements tend to be terminated with keywords such as "End If",

instead of using "{}"s to group statements.

Multiple variable assignment is not possible. A = B = C does not imply

that the values of A, B and C are equal. The boolean result of "Is B = C?" is stored in A. The result stored in A would therefore be either false or true.

Boolean constant True has numeric value 1.[5] This is because the

Boolean data type is stored as a 16-bit signed integer. In this construct 1 evaluates to 16 binary 1s (the Boolean value True), and 0 as 16 0s (the

Boolean value False). This is apparent when performing a Not operation on a 16 bit signed integer value 0 which will return the integer value 1, in other words True = Not False. This inherent functionality becomes especially useful when performing logical operations on the individual bits of an integer such as And, Or, Xor and Not.[6] This definition of True is also consistent with BASIC and is since the early to 1970s Microsoft BASIC of CPU implementation also related the characteristics

instructions at the time.

Logical and bitwise operators are unified. This is unlike some C-derived

languages (such as Perl), which have separate logical and bitwise operators. This again is a traditional feature of BASIC.

Variable array base. Arrays are declared by specifying the upper and

lower bounds in a way similar to Pascal and Fortran. It is also possible to use the Option Base statement to set the default lower bound. Use of the Option Base statement can lead to confusion when reading Visual Basic code and is best avoided by always explicitly specifying the lower bound of the array. This lower bound is not limited to 0 or 1, because it can also be set by declaration. In this way, both the lower and upper bounds are programmable. In more subscript-limited languages, the lower bound of the array is not variable. This uncommon trait does exist in Visual Basic .NET but not in VBScript. OPTION BASE was introduced by ANSI, with the standard for ANSI Minimal BASIC in the late 1970s.

Relatively strong integration with the Windows operating system and

the Component Object Model. The native types for strings and arrays are the dedicated COM types, BSTR and SAFEARRAY.

Banker's rounding as the default behavior when converting real

numbers to integers with the Round function.[7] ? Round(2.5, 0) gives 2, ? Round(3.5, 0) gives 4.

Integers are automatically promoted to reals in expressions involving

the normal division operator (/) so that division of one integer by another produces the intuitively correct result. There is a specific integer divide operator (\) which does truncate.

By default, if a variable has not been declared or if no type declaration with Deftype statements There such are

character is specified, the variable is of type Variant. However this can be changed asDefInt, DefBool, DefVar, DefObj, DefStr.

12 Deftype statements in total offered by Visual Basic 6.0. The default type may be overridden for a specific declaration by using a special suffix character on the variable name (# for Double, ! for Single, & for Long, % for Integer, $ for String, and @ for Currency) or using the key phrase As (type). VB can also be set in a mode that only explicitly declared variables can be used with the command Option Explicit.

History VB 1.0 was introduced in 1991. The drag and drop design for creating the user interface is derived from a prototype form generator developed by Alan Cooper and his company called Tripod. Microsoft contracted with Cooper and his associates to develop Tripod into a programmable form system for Windows 3.0, under the code name Ruby (no relation to the Ruby programming language). Tripod did not include a programming language at all. Microsoft decided to combine Ruby with the Basic language to create Visual Basic.

The Ruby interface generator provided the "visual" part of Visual Basic and this was combined with the "EB" Embedded BASIC engine designed for Microsoft's abandoned "Omega" database system. Ruby also provided the ability to load dynamic link libraries containing additional controls (then called "gizmos"), which later became the VBX interface. Timeline

Project 'Thunder' was initiated Visual Basic 1.0 (May 1991) was released for Windows at the

Comdex/Windows World trade show in Atlanta, Georgia.

Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS was released in September 1992. The language the next version of Microsoft's DOS-based BASIC

itself was not quite compatible with Visual Basic for Windows, as it was actually compilers, QuickBASIC and BASIC Professional Development System. The interface used a Text user interface, using extended ASCII characters to simulate the appearance of a GUI.

Visual Basic 2.0 was released in November 1992. The programming

environment was easier to use, and its speed was improved. Notably, forms became instantiable objects, thus laying the foundational concepts of class modules as were later offered in VB4.

Visual Basic 3.0 was released in the summer of 1993 and came in

Standard and Professional versions. VB3 included version 1.1 of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine that could read and write Jet (or Access) 1.x databases.

Visual Basic 4.0 (August 1995) was the first version that could

create 32-bit as well as 16-bit Windows programs. It has three editions; Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. It also introduced the ability to write non-GUI classes in Visual Basic. Incompatibilities between different

releases of VB4 caused installation and operation problems. While previous versions of Visual Basic had used VBX controls, Visual Basic now used OLE controls (with files names ending in .OCX) instead. These were later to be named ActiveX controls.

With version 5.0 (February 1997), Microsoft released Visual Basic

exclusively for 32-bit versions of Windows. Programmers who preferred to write 16-bit programs were able to import programs written in Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 5.0, and Visual Basic 5.0 programs can easily be converted with Visual Basic 4.0. Visual Basic 5.0 also introduced the ability to create custom user controls, as well as the ability to compile to native Windows executable code, speeding up calculation-intensive code execution. A free, downloadable Control Creation Edition was also released for creation of ActiveX controls. It was also used as an introductory form of Visual Basic: a regular .exe project could be created and run in the IDE, but not compiled.

Visual Basic 6.0 (Mid 1998) improved in a number of areas including the

ability to create web-based applications. VB6 has entered Microsoft's "nonsupported phase" as of March 2008. Although the Visual Basic 6.0 development environment is no longer supported, the runtime is supported on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.

Mainstream Support for Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 ended on March 31,

2005. Extended support ended in March 2008. In response, the Visual Basic user community expressed its grave concern and lobbied users to sign a petition to keep the product alive. Microsoft has so far refused to change their position on the matter. (but see) Ironically, around this time

(2005),

it

was

exposed

that

Microsoft's of

new

anti-spyware Company

offering, Microsoft

AntiSpyware (part

the GIANT

Software purchase), was coded in Visual Basic 6.0. Its replacement, Windows Defender, was rewritten as C++ code.