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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Old Tech Survives.

I went into the local 7/11 today and got a surprise. Someone ahead of me was using his credit card, and the clerk was taking his info with an old fashioned credit card imprinter instead of using a scanner. I haven't seen anyone use one of those in years, but a quick check online shows you can still buy them. Some younger readers may not be familiar with these devices, but that's how credit card transactions were done prior to the widespread use of electronic card scanners. The one I saw today was of the once familiar slide type, where you place your card on the imprinter and the clerk slides a bar across it, imprinting the card's markings on a sheet of paper. I really should have asked her why she was using one, although I presume the credit card scanners weren't working at the time.

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