In this section, we focus on the Phonecard story.
The idea of phonecards as a prepaid currency card, designed specifically to facilitate non-coin public payphone calls, make the first ripples on the world stage from the early 1970's. At this early stage, IBM punch card computer technology was around, and Magnetic stripe cards had already been used in banking cards for a few years. The field of Coherent optics (Holograms etc) were just starting to be explored.

In fact the FIRST commercial usage of patterned Read/Write laser technology was developed for Phonecards, years before the first audio CDs hit the market.
Complex magnetic stripe technology developed beyond the simple Ferrite band used on bank cards.

By the late 1970's, integrated circuits on cards (CHIPCARDS) made their debut, and Phonecards were quickly included, as the cost of chip card manufacture was dramatically reduced in the early 1980's

Please enjoy this fascinating story

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