amazing
Magnets. They are used as storage devices. You write your shopping list down and stick it to the refrigerator. Magnet.
Magnet. You swipe your credit card at the store and that little black strip with your bank information? Magnet.
Magnetic tape inside 8 tracks and cassettes, VHS tape, reel to reel recordings. Information written down by arranging little bits of iron in binary code so you can listen to music anywhere. Magnetically.
Computer. Hard drive. Advanced level rare earth magnet.
It’s all the same thing. Magnets.
Pulled from wikipedia- an anecdote about the invention of magstripes.
“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.”