A magnetic stripe card manual swipe reader (MSR) unit capable of attaching to
and
communicating with a conventional personal digital assistant (PDA) from various
manufacturers, using only the electrical power available as supplied by the PDA
device, and capable of effective electrical power management and conservation operations.
Additionally, this PDA attachable MSR unit is capable of recognizing multiple magnetic
encoding formats and data record formats and converting said formats to a standardized
output format, includes the capability of updating and adding new formats while
in field service, and is readily allows verifying card data and encoding sensitive
material prior to transmission to the PDA. These custom formats can then be used
to fulfill current needs in age verification, law enforcement, security, and numerous
other applications.