The card has means for protection against forgery and unauthorized use, and comprises a laminated structure consisting of an outer base layer, an intermediate layer and an outer cover layer. The base layer is a supporting layer of relatively thick transparent foil material providing the necessary durability, rigidity and a portion of the desired thickness of the card. The intermediate layer comprises special paper having zones of respectively different thickness distributed therein and discernab...

A credit card having a coating of a substance which when treated sufficiently permanently and irreversably changes from a first state having one characteristic of reflectivity for visible light components incident thereon to a second state having a second characteristic of reflectivity for the light components. Preferably, in the first state the substance is highly light reflective, and reflects light of different wavelengths unequally, and in the second state the substance is light transparent....

An apparatus for reading a digital data word stored on a manually inserted card. The card includes a digital data word comprising a plurality of encoded characters stored on the card in the form of a two dimensional data matrix. Each column of the data matrix includes a binary data word representative of one of the encoded characters. The card reader includes a linear array of row data detection elements and a linear array of column data detection elements. As a card is inserted into the reader,...

A card shuffler is disclosed comprising an inner case slidable in an outer case. The inner case has a plurality of separators that both divide the playing cards into portions of substantially equal number of cards and define compartments oriented at an angle to the direction the inner case slides in the outer case. The outer case has runners that hold the playing cards in the compartments when the inner case is fully disposed in the outer case but permit ejection of the cards, one card from each...

A card reader for reading a Hollerith coded card where the holes in the card are scanned by a single array of photo detectors as the card is withdrawn from a slot, and where an edge detector determines when the card is fully inserted into the slot so as to activate a scanner and signal a memory unit to accept data from the scanner, and where an error detector detects any improper scanning of the card by counting the number of rows scanned and prevents processing of incorrectly generated data.

A card holder comprising a container having a bottom wall, end walls, side walls, and a slidably mounted top closure. A card support plate is swingably engaged to said top closure and depends from the normally rearward, marginal portion thereof; said plate having a pair of spaced-apart clip-forming members for retaining a preselected card thereon; there being an arm hingedly engaged to said support plate in its lower end portion for disposition between same and the adjacent side wall of the hold...

The print opening of a card holder is configured to have unidirectionally angled upper and outer edges that progressively cam the edges of a sheet into engagement with a platen without catching the corner of the sheet or otherwise jamming the paper feed operation.

A card cassette includes a card containing chamber, and a card feeding roller located on the wall of at least one side of the card containing chamber. When the cassette is inserted into a cassette mount or a cassette receiving recess of a mating device, the roller rolls on the inner wall of the cassette receiving recess of the device as the cassette is further pushed inward, thereby automatically delivering the card within the card containing chamber into a card processing station of the device....

A memory card adaptor card which adapts a memory card compliant with a first standard to a memory card slot compliant with a second standard different from the first standard for electrical connection therebetween. The adaptor card includes a grounding connection mechanism for electrically connecting a grounding contact of the memory card to a grounding circuit of the memory card slot. The grounding connection mechanism includes, for example, a contact spring piece which is to be brought into re...

A card holder has a generally flat and rectangular plastic base fixed to a support, e.g. a printed-circuit board of a card reader, and formed centered on an axis with a pair of pivot pins. A generally rectangular and flat metal cover forming a slot dimensioned to hold the card is unitarily formed with a pair of U-shaped journals each fitting partially around a respective one of the pins and forming therewith a hinge. Thus the cover can pivot between an open position with the cover and the card i...