Printek Emulation
in either direction. If the read is successful, the MCR indicator will stay lit momentarily (not flashing) and
the printer will transmit the data read and/or the status of the requested read operation.
If a swipe does not result in a successful read, the Error Indicator will also begin to flash and an error
message as described below will be transmitted. The card may be swiped multiple times until a successful read
occurs or until the specified timeout expires. Once the timeout occurs, the MCR will be disabled and both
indicators will be turned off.
The data are returned as string(s) of ASCII characters in the following format.
ASCII: % / 1 / track 1 data ? CR LF
Hexadecimal: 25 2F 31 2F … 3F 0D 0A
ASCII: ; / 2 / track 2 data ? CR LF
Hexadecimal: 3B 2F 32 2F … 3F 0D 0A
ASCII: + / 3 / track 3 data ? CR LF
Hexadecimal: 2B 2F 33 2F … 3F 0D 0A
Note: If no data is available for a track, the track data portion of the string will be empty. Other tracks
containing valid data will be returned. If an error occurs on any track, the track data portion of the
string for that track will contain a single “E” (Hexadecimal 45).
If for any reason the MCR is unable to read the card’s data, the printer will transmit an error message string in
the format shown below. The characters n1 n2 represent an error number and error message is a description of
the error. Possible values are described in the subsequent table.
ASCII: % E , n1 n2 , error message , CR LF
Hexadecimal: 25 45 2C … … 2C … 2C 0D 0A
n1 n2 Error Message
05 Time-out Expired
07 Invalid Track Number
08 Unsupported Track Selected
09 Cancel Request
This command will cancel a pending MCR read command. The printer will transmit an “error” message
indicating that it has processed the cancel request and turn off the MCR indicator.
Escape Sequence: ESC C
Hexadecimal: 1B 43
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