Re: Direct connect mag stripe reader

From looking at the initial web page, it looked like the clock just

sent an ASCII string. Maybe badge number date and time. Fields
possibky separate by either a tab or ASCII FS character. Sting ended
with CR.

Is that not what the clock sends? My only experience was years ago
with an RS232 scale which sent a string that included the weight.

Are time clocks that different? Maybe a naive question. Just never
worked with a time clock.

John McKee

On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Pete Helgren <pete@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yeah, the whole thing is programmable. Right now the clock sits and
displays the current time and when they wave the badge in front of the
clock their name is displayed then the last punch status. They punch IN
or OUT and then I display "Punch Recorded". The clock uses an SQLite DB
so the CGI program is a SQLite query wrapped in a script that returns
the records I request as text to the web server and then I just parse
the result.

Pretty straight forward. The programming of the clock interface itself
takes a little bit of mental gymnastics but once you understand how it
works, it is fairly easy.

Pete Helgren
www.petesworkshop.com
GIAC Secure Software Programmer-Java

On 8/23/2013 10:08 AM, Mike Cunningham wrote:

Something with a built in webserver is what I was trying to find last night that maybe server up xml data. The device you shared looks exactly like what I was after. Not bad price either. I have done CGI to talk to other similar devices and have java and CGI expertise at my disposal. I just might order one of these and play around with it.

With this device how much control do you have over the display? If I use it for students who need to checkin/out of a location can I send back to the display a "CHECKED IN" message or "ID DID NOT SCAN". Not sure I need that in the immediate need but I can see that being helpful in other projects down the road.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pete Helgren
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2013 9:45 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Direct connect mag stripe reader

Mike,

It depends upon what the device is running. I use timeclocks from Icontime and basically it runs Busybox (a very lightweight Linux distro) http://www.icontime.com/index.php/products/automated-time-clocks/universal-time-clocks/rtc-1000-2-0-universal-time-clock.
I have a Java servlet on IBM i that goes out and polls the the clocks and retrieves the data using a CGI program (so basically each clock has a tiny web server). The CGI "program" is just a bash script. It's all pretty easy.

So the first question would be how to query the device (it is a little vague about it). It *might*even be running something like Busybox. At that point, I could even share the scripts I use.

Pete Helgren
www.petesworkshop.com
GIAC Secure Software Programmer-Java

On 8/22/2013 9:38 PM, Mike Cunningham wrote:

Does anyone know of a way to direct connect an iSeries to a magnetic stripe card reader?

I found this device but it does not go into much detail on how to talk to it. Would I be able to use the sockets API to talk to this type of device?
http://www.computerwise.com/ethernet/ep310.html#terminal_emulation

I really do not want to get into having a windows system setup to collect the data and then try to get that up to the iSeries. I have used 5250 connected time clocks but that is a bit overkill for my need. Which is to just let students swipe a card to clock in/out of a location.

Or something a little more robust http://www.computerwise.com/time/ec305.htm and use F1 to clockin and F2 for clockout. This one would store internally and the FTP client in the iSeries could pull the data.

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