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Determining Code Start and Stop Positions – Known Codes

If you have a sample card and you know the codes you expect to see returned from it, you can follow the procedure below to determine where the codes begin and end in the binary data string returned from the HID card reader.

  1. To see the full value of the data string returned by the HID card reader, you must change the card swipe PIN settings:
    1. In System Manager, go to System Configuration > Global Configuration Settings > Security and Authentication > User Authentication > Card Setup.
    2. Change the From position to 1 and the To position to 50 in the Use Data as Primary PIN section.
  2. Configure your HID embedded control terminal to use a static IP. Change the server IP address setting to point to the IP address of the system on which you run the Card Swipe Wizard.
  3. Temporarily disable HID decoding on the terminal to examine the raw data only. See Disabling and Enabling HID Decoding on the PageCounter Terminal.
  4. If you plan to run the Card Swipe Wizard on the server running DCE, stop the EQ DCE Service on the server:

    5. The Card Swipe Wizard can only talk to one terminal at a time. If there are multiple terminals pointing to the system running the Card Swipe Wizard, you need to unplug all but the one you have configured in step 2 above.

  5. On an administrative workstation, browse to the Tools folder within the directory where Equitrac is installed (for example, Programs Files\Equitrac\Tools) and run the CardSwipeWizard.exefile to launch the Card Swipe Wizard.
  6. Select PageCounter device as the Card swipe unit.
  7. Enter the Windows network name of the computer that hosts the accounting server and click Next.
  8. Power on the PageCounter terminal configured in step 2 and wait for it to connect to the system running the Card Swipe Wizard.
  9. Take your sample card (for example, with the number 87343 11082200-1 printed on the card) and swipe it at the terminal. The Card Swipe Wizard displays the extracted data string from the sample card in the Primary PIN field.

    10. The following table shows the number printed on the card as well as the expected values that you know should be returned by the HID card reader.

    Number Printed on the Card Expected Facility Code to be returned (in decimal) Expected ID Code to be returned (in decimal)
    87343 11082200-1 109 86343
    CAUTION:
    The number printed on the card may not be the facility code or ID code.

    Since HID decoding is disabled on the terminal, the HID card reader in the PageCounter terminal return the entire data string from the card in octal format.

    Number Printed on the Card Value returned (octal)
    87343 11082200-1 0000201550521216

  10. Convert the extracted octal string to its binary value using the Microsoft Windows Calculator:
    Value returned (octal) Value returned (binary)
    0000201550521216 000000000000010000001101101000101010001010001110
    It is important to keep the leading digits in the stream. The Windows Calculator usually strips off leading zeros. To adjust your output, you have to ensure there is a group of three binary digits for each octal digit in the raw data stream. You should have a total of 48 binary digits.

    You can now analyze the resulting sets of the binary sequence found from one of your samples. Convert the expected codes to be returned from the wizard from decimal to binary

    Expected Facility Code (in decimal) Expected Facility Code (in binary)
    109 1101101
    Expected ID code (in decimal) Expected ID code (in binary)
    86343 10101000101000111
  11. Open the HIDEncoding-Ruler.txt file.
  12. Paste the binary string you converted from the Card Swipe Wizard into Notepad above the makeshift ruler. Be sure to add enough leading zeros to make the string equal 48 digits:
    1. If you use a facility code, click Edit > Find and input the expected binary string representing the facility code to have Notepad find the digits for you:
      Using the ruler, you can see that in the example above that the facility code is located from digit 20 to digit 26 inclusive.
    2. Click Edit > Find again and input the expected binary string representing the ID code to have Notepad find the string for you:
      Using the ruler, you can see from the example above that the ID code is located from digit 30 to digit 46 inclusive.
      It is possible that the starting bit might actually begin one or more digits earlier if there are leading zeros. Therefore it is a good idea to test the card after this procedure to ensure that you have recorded the correct start and end positions. See HID Decoding.
  13. Record the start and end locations for the facility code (if used) and ID code to use when setting up Equitrac.
  14. Close the Card Swipe Wizard.
  15. If required, restart EQ DCE Service on the DCE server.
  16. Enable HID decoding on the PageCounter terminal.
If you need to use the Card Swipe Wizard to read HID cards and setup Equitrac PINs, you need to temporarily enable local caching on the PageCounters, then ensure the PageCounter that you are using the Card Swipe Wizard on connects to DCE. Finally, disable the local caching setting on the PageCounters. The PageCounter can be used with HID cards.