In the beginning, the airline and banking industries had different schemes for storing data on a magnetic stripe. To satisfy the needs of both industries, the decision was made to use multiple tracks on a single stripe, a design concept that remains standard today.
Hot stamping data
In the early 1970s IBM introduced the IBM® 3600 finance communication system, tying bank branches together and bringing increased automation to tellers. The 3600 relied heavily on magnetic stripe technology—for employee identification and within customers’ passbooks.
Atomic data storage
With their larger storage capacity, programmability and advanced security features, smart cards and cell phones are presently giving the venerable magnetic stripe card a run for its money. Meanwhile, IBM research suggests these technological advances may themselves be upstaged by the smallest storage device in the universe—the atom. IBM scientists such as Sebastian Loth, pictured here with the scanning tunneling microscope, are investigating the likelihood that the atom itself can store the essential 1’s and 0’s of digital data, leading to as yet unimagined applications for nanotechnology.