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117-574: Although originally designed as a standard for memory- expansion cards for computer storage , the existence of a usable general standard for notebook peripherals led to the development of many kinds of devices including network cards , modems , and hard disks . The PC Card port has been superseded by the ExpressCard interface since 2003, which was also initially developed by the PCMCIA. The organization dissolved in 2009, with its assets merged into

234-456: A receipt with a record of the card details and indicating the amount to be paid or by entering a personal identification number (PIN). Also, many merchants now accept verbal authorizations via telephone and electronic authorization using the Internet, known as a card not present transaction (CNP). Electronic verification systems allow merchants to verify in a few seconds that the card

351-411: A single serial RS232 port or Ethernet port. An expansion card can be installed to offer multiple RS232 ports or multiple and higher bandwidth Ethernet ports. In this case, the motherboard provides basic functionality but the expansion card offers additional or enhanced ports. One edge of the expansion card holds the contacts (the edge connector or pin header ) that fit into the slot. They establish

468-572: A 300% annual interest rate. On 19 October 2010, Hideki Fukuba became the first operator of such an online cash back service to be charged by the police. He was charged on tax evasion of 40 million yen in unpaid taxes. A credit card issuing company, such as a bank or credit union, enters into agreements with merchants for them to accept their credit cards. Merchants often advertise in signage or other company material which cards they accept by displaying acceptance marks generally derived from logos. Alternatively, this may be communicated, for example, via

585-553: A PC Card or ExpressCard slot.) This reduced the requirement for internal expansion slots ; by 2011, many laptops had none. Some IBM ThinkPad laptops took their onboard RAM (in sizes ranging from 4 to 16 MB) in the factor of an IC-DRAM Card. While very similar in form-factor, these cards did not go into a standard PC Card Slot, often being installed under the keyboard, for example. They also were not pin-compatible, as they had 88 pins but in two staggered rows, as opposed to even rows like PC Cards. These correspond to versions 1 and 2 of

702-445: A PC Card slot for playback of media. Adapters for PC Cards to Personal Computer ISA slots were available when these technologies were current. Cardbus adapters for PCI slots have been made. These adapters were sometimes used to fit Wireless (802.11) PCMCIA cards into desktop computers with PCI slots. Before the introduction of the PCMCIA card, the parallel port was commonly used for portable peripherals. The PCMCIA 1.0 card standard

819-523: A PCI Bus. Generally speaking, most PCI expansion cards will function on any CPU platform which incorporates PCI bus hardware provided there is a software driver for that type. PCI video cards and any other cards that contain their own BIOS or other ROM are problematic, although video cards conforming to VESA Standards may be used for secondary monitors. DEC Alpha, IBM PowerPC, and NEC MIPS workstations used PCI bus connectors. Both Zorro II and NuBus were plug and play , requiring no hardware configuration by

936-432: A PCI-to-PCIe Bridge. Despite being much faster in speed/bandwidth, ExpressCard was not as popular as PC Card, due in part to the ubiquity of USB ports on modern computers. Most functionality provided by PC Card or ExpressCard devices is now available as an external USB device. These USB devices have the advantage of being compatible with desktop computers as well as portable devices. (Desktop computers were rarely fitted with

1053-573: A PCMCIA card reader in the W221 S-Class for model years 2006-2009. It was used for reading media files such as MP3 audio files to play through the COMAND infotainment system. After 2009, it was replaced with a standard SD Card reader. As of 2013, some vehicles from Honda equipped with a navigation system still included a PC Card reader integrated into the audio system . Some Japanese brand consumer entertainment devices such as TV sets include

1170-418: A cabinet, not just a printed circuit board. Processor, memory and I/O cards became feasible with the development of integrated circuits . Expansion cards make processor systems adaptable to the needs of the user by making it possible to connect various types of devices, including I/O, additional memory, and optional features (such as a floating point unit ) to the central processor. Minicomputers, starting with

1287-545: A card for purchases was described in 1887 by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward . Bellamy used the term credit card eleven times in this novel, although this referred to a card for spending a guaranteed minimum income , rather than borrowing, making it more similar to a debit card . Beginning in the late 19th century, charge cards came in various shapes and sizes, made of celluloid (an early type of plastic), copper, aluminum, steel, and other types of whitish metals. Some were shaped like coins, with

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1404-479: A card that few consumers used. Bank of America chose Fresno because 45% of its residents used the bank, and by sending a card to 60,000 Fresno residents at once, the bank was able to convince merchants to accept the card. It was eventually licensed to other banks around the United States and then around the world, and in 1976, all BankAmericard licensees united themselves under the common brand Visa . In 1966,

1521-455: A computer system to be extended or supplemented in a way appropriate to the tasks it will perform. For example, a high-speed multi-channel data acquisition system would be of no use in a personal computer used for bookkeeping, but might be a key part of a system used for industrial process control. Expansion cards can often be installed or removed in the field, allowing a degree of user customization for particular purposes. Some expansion cards take

1638-400: A computer system. Sometimes the design of the computer's case and motherboard involves placing most (or all) of these slots onto a separate, removable card. Typically such cards are referred to as a riser card in part because they project upward from the board and allow expansion cards to be placed above and parallel to the motherboard. Expansion cards allow the capabilities and interfaces of

1755-400: A credit card holder presenting an accepted form of identification must be issued a cash advance over the counter at any bank which issues that type of credit card, even if the cardholder cannot give their PIN . A Japanese law enabling credit card cash back came into force in 2010. However, a legal loophole in this system was quickly exploited by online shops dedicated to providing cash back as

1872-406: A credit card of items that are viewed as cash are also considered to be cash advances in accordance with the credit card network's guidelines, thereby incurring the higher interest rate and the lack of the grace period . These often include money orders , prepaid debit cards , lottery tickets, gaming chips , mobile payments and certain taxes and fees paid to certain governments. However, should

1989-410: A different interest rate, possibly with a single umbrella credit limit, or with separate credit limits applicable to the various balance segments. Usually, this compartmentalization is the result of special incentive offers from the issuing bank, to encourage balance transfers from cards of other issuers. If several interest rates apply to various balance segments, then payment allocation is generally at

2106-412: A discrete GPU. Most other computer lines, including those from Apple Inc. , Tandy , Commodore , Amiga , and Atari, Inc. , offered their own expansion buses. The Amiga used Zorro II . Apple used a proprietary system with seven 50-pin-slots for Apple II peripheral cards , then later used both variations on Processor Direct Slot and NuBus for its Macintosh series until 1995, when they switched to

2223-553: A dozen attempts by small American banks, but none of them were able to last very long . In 1958, Bank of America launched the BankAmericard in Fresno, California , which would become the first successful recognizably modern credit card. This card succeeded where others failed by breaking the chicken-and-egg cycle in which consumers did not want to use a card that few merchants would accept and merchants did not want to accept

2340-444: A form of easy loan with exorbitant rates. At first, the online store sells a single inexpensive item of glass marble, golf tee, or eraser with an 80,000 yen wire transfer for a 100,000 yen (1,200 US dollar) credit card payment. A month later, when the credit card provider charges the card owner with the full fee, the online store is out of the picture with no liability. In effect, what the online cash back services provide are loans with

2457-414: A keypad, a display or a fingerprint sensor are increasingly used for credit cards. In addition to the main credit card number, credit cards also carry issue and expiration dates (given to the nearest month), as well as extra codes such as issue numbers and security codes . Complex smart cards allow to have a variable security code, thus increasing security for online transactions. Not all credit cards have

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2574-414: A little hole enabling it to be put in a key ring. These charge coins were usually given to customers who had charge accounts in hotels or department stores. Each had a charge account number, along with the merchant's name and logo. The charge coin offered a simple and fast way to copy a charge account number to the sales slip, by imprinting the coin onto the sales slip. The Charga-Plate, developed in 1928,

2691-479: A number of features specific to businesses. They frequently offer special rewards in areas such as shipping, office supplies, travel, and business technology. Most issuers use the applicant's personal credit score when evaluating these applications. In addition, income from a variety of sources may be used to qualify, which means these cards may be available to businesses that are newly established. In addition, some issuers of this card do not report account activity to

2808-543: A passive adapter can be made to connect XT cards to a PLUS expansion connector. Another feature of PLUS cards is that they are stackable. Another bus that offered stackable expansion modules was the "sidecar" bus used by the IBM PCjr . This may have been electrically comparable to the XT bus; it most certainly had some similarities since both essentially exposed the 8088 CPU's address and data buses, with some buffering and latching,

2925-446: A physical check, such as an electronic transfer of funds from a checking account. Depending on the issuer, the cardholder may also be able to make multiple payments during a single statement period, possibly enabling him or her to utilize the credit limit on the card several times. The cardholder must pay a defined minimum portion of the amount owed by a due date or may choose to pay a higher amount. The credit issuer charges interest on

3042-409: A positive credit history. Although the deposit is in the hands of the credit card issuer as security in the event of default by the consumer, the deposit will not be debited simply for missing one or two payments. Usually, the deposit is only used as an offset when the account is closed, either at the request of the customer or due to severe delinquency (150 to 180 days). This means that an account that

3159-542: A printed or embossed bank card number complying with the ISO/IEC 7812 numbering standard. The card number's prefix , called the Bank Identification Number (known in the industry as a BIN ), is the sequence of digits at the beginning of the number that determine the bank to which a credit card number belongs. This is the first six digits for MasterCard and Visa cards. The next nine digits are

3276-481: A purchase, the plate was laid into a recess in the imprinter , with a paper "charge slip" positioned on top of it. The record of the transaction included an impression of the embossed information, made by the imprinter pressing an inked ribbon against the charge slip. Charga-Plate was a trademark of Farrington Manufacturing Co . Charga-Plates were issued by large-scale merchants to their regular customers, much like department store credit cards of today. In some cases,

3393-466: A restaurant's menu or orally, or stating, "We don't take credit cards". The credit card issuer issues a credit card to a customer at the time or after an account has been approved by the credit provider, which need not be the same entity as the card issuer. The cardholders can then use it to make purchases at merchants accepting that card. When a purchase is made, the cardholder agrees to pay the card issuer. The cardholder indicates consent to pay by signing

3510-418: A worldwide credit card network (although these were initially charge cards that later acquired credit card features). Until 1958, no one had been able to successfully establish a revolving credit financial system in which a card issued by a third-party bank was being generally accepted by a large number of merchants, as opposed to merchant-issued revolving cards accepted by only a few merchants. There had been

3627-420: Is 85.60 by 53.98 millimetres ( 3 + 3 ⁄ 8  in ×  2 + 1 ⁄ 8  in) and rounded corners with a radius of 2.88–3.48 millimetres ( 9 ⁄ 80 – 11 ⁄ 80  in) conforming to the ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1 standard, the same size as ATM cards and other payment cards , such as debit cards . Most credit cards are made of plastic, but some are made from metal. Credit cards have

PC Card - Misplaced Pages Continue

3744-424: Is CardBus (see below), a 32-bit version of the original standard. In addition to supporting a wider bus of 32 bits (instead of the original 16), CardBus also supports bus mastering and operation speeds up to 33 MHz. CardBus are PCMCIA 5.0 or later (JEIDA 4.2 or later) 32-bit PCMCIA devices, introduced in 1995 and present in laptops from late 1997 onward. CardBus is effectively a 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI bus in

3861-437: Is a variant added to the PCMCIA specification introduced in 2001. It was intended to add some forward compatibility with USB and IEEE 1394 , but was not universally adopted and only some notebooks have PC Card controllers with CardBay features. This is an implementation of Microsoft and Intel's joint Drive Bay initiative. The card information structure (CIS) is metadata stored on a PC card that contains information about

3978-414: Is an accepted version of this page A credit card is a payment card , usually issued by a bank , allowing its users to purchase goods or services , or withdraw cash , on credit . Using the card thus accrues debt that has to be repaid later. Credit cards are one of the most widely used forms of payment across the world. A regular credit card is different from a charge card , which requires

4095-412: Is an expansion card that attaches to a system directly. Daughterboards often have plugs, sockets, pins or other attachments for other boards. Daughterboards often have only internal connections within a computer or other electronic devices, and usually access the motherboard directly rather than through a computer bus . Such boards are used to either improve various memory capacities of a computer, enable

4212-594: Is essentially a compact version of the ISA bus. The CardBus expansion card standard is an evolution of the PC card standard to make it into a compact version of the PCI bus. The original ExpressCard standard acts like it is either a USB 2.0 peripheral or a PCI Express 1.x x1 device. ExpressCard 2.0 adds SuperSpeed USB as another type of interface the card can use. Unfortunately, CardBus and ExpressCard are vulnerable to DMA attack unless

4329-448: Is late paying the balance, finance charges will be calculated and the grace period does not apply. Finance charges incurred depend on the grace period and balance; with most credit cards there is no grace period if there is any outstanding balance from the previous billing cycle or statement (i.e. interest is applied on both the previous balance and new transactions). However, there are some credit cards that will only apply finance charges on

4446-481: Is made the balance already reflects the funds were spent. In a credit card's entry, the deposit column shows the available credit and the payment column shows the total owed, their sum being equal to the credit limit. Each check is written, debit card transaction, cash withdrawal, and credit card charge are entered manually into the paper register daily or several times per week. Credit card register also refers to one transaction record for each credit card. In this case,

4563-445: Is still expected to make regular payments, as with a regular credit card, but should they default on a payment, the card issuer has the option of recovering the cost of the purchases paid to the merchants out of the deposit. The advantage of the secured card for an individual with negative or no credit history is that most companies report regularly to the major credit bureaus. This allows the cardholder to start building (or re-building)

4680-401: Is usually detailed in a cardholder agreement which may be summarized on the back of the monthly statement. The general calculation formula most financial institutions use to determine the amount of interest to be charged is (APR/100 x ADB)/365 x number of days revolved. Take the annual percentage rate (APR) and divide by 100 then multiply to the amount of the average daily balance (ADB). Divide

4797-416: Is valid and the cardholder has sufficient credit to cover the purchase, allowing the verification to happen at time of purchase. The verification is performed using a credit card payment terminal or point-of-sale (POS) system with a communications link to the merchant's acquiring bank. Data from the card is obtained from a magnetic stripe or chip on the card; the latter system is called Chip and PIN in

PC Card - Misplaced Pages Continue

4914-674: The IBM PC in 1981, Acorn 's tube expansion bus on the BBC Micro also from 1981, IBM's patented and proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) from 1987 that never won favour in the clone market, the vastly improved Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) that displaced ISA in 1992, and PCI Express from 2003 which abstracts the interconnect into high-speed communication "lanes" and relegates all other functions into software protocol. Vacuum-tube based computers had modular construction, but individual functions for peripheral devices filled

5031-566: The JEIDA memory card standard. The shape is also used by the Common Interface form of conditional-access modules for DVB , and by Panasonic for their professional "P2" video acquisition memory cards. A CableCARD conditional-access module is a type II PC Card intended to be plugged into a cable set-top box or digital cable-ready television. The interface has spawned a generation of flash memory cards that set out to improve on

5148-706: The Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis included expansion buses in some form; In the case of at least the Genesis, the expansion bus was proprietary. In fact, the cartridge slots of many cartridge-based consoles (not counting the Atari 2600 ) would qualify as expansion buses, as they exposed both read and write capabilities of the system's internal bus. However, the expansion modules attached to these interfaces, though functionally

5265-696: The PCMCIA connector, is a PCI format that attaches peripherals to the Host PCI Bus via PCI to PCI Bridge. Cardbus is being supplanted by ExpressCard format. Intel introduced the AGP bus in 1997 as a dedicated video acceleration solution. AGP devices are logically attached to the PCI bus over a PCI-to-PCI bridge. Though termed a bus, AGP usually supports only a single card at a time ( Legacy BIOS support issues). From 2005 PCI Express has been replacing both PCI and AGP. This standard, approved in 2004, implements

5382-664: The PDP-8 , were made of multiple cards communicating through, and powered by, a passive backplane . The first commercial microcomputer to feature expansion slots was the Micral N , in 1973. The first company to establish a de facto standard was Altair with the Altair 8800 , developed 1974–1975, which later became a multi-manufacturer standard, the S-100 bus . Many of these computers were also passive backplane designs, where all elements of

5499-597: The USB Implementers Forum . Many notebooks in the 1990s had two adjacent type-II slots, which allowed installation of two type-II cards or one, double-thickness, type-III card. The cards were also used in early digital SLR cameras, such as the Kodak DCS 300 series . However, their original use as storage expansion is no longer common. Some manufacturers such as Dell continued to offer them into 2012 on their ruggedized XFR notebooks. Mercedes-Benz used

5616-520: The United Kingdom and Ireland , and is implemented as an EMV card. For card not present transactions where the card is not shown (e.g., e-commerce , mail order , and telephone sales), merchants additionally verify that the customer is in physical possession of the card and is the authorized user by asking for additional information such as the security code printed on the back of the card, date of expiry, and billing address. Each month,

5733-456: The form factor of the motherboard and case , around one to seven expansion cards can be added to a computer system. 19 or more expansion cards can be installed in backplane systems. When many expansion cards are added to a system, total power consumption and heat dissipation become limiting factors. Some expansion cards take up more than one slot space. For example, many graphics cards on the market as of 2010 are dual slot graphics cards, using

5850-895: The mezzanine of a theatre . Wavetable cards ( sample-based synthesis cards) are often mounted on sound cards in this manner. Some mezzanine card interface standards include the 400 pin FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC); the 172 pin High-Speed Mezzanine Card (HSMC); the PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC); XMC mezzanines; the Advanced Mezzanine Card ; IndustryPacks (VITA 4), the GreenSpring Computers Mezzanine modules ; etc. Examples of daughterboard-style expansion cards include: Credit card This

5967-666: The 1940s, all of the major U.S. airlines offered Air Travel Cards that could be used on 17 different airlines. By 1941, about half of the airlines' revenues came through the Air Travel Card agreement. The airlines had also started offering installment plans to lure new travellers into the air. In 1948, the Air Travel Card became the first internationally valid charge card within all members of the International Air Transport Association . The concept of customers paying different merchants using

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6084-550: The 1978 Supreme Court case Marquette National Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp., led to substantial reforms that made the credit card industry more competitive. A 2024 study estimated that these competitive reforms resulted in substantial welfare gains, in particular for low-income groups. The fragmented nature of the U.S. banking system regulation under the Glass–Steagall Act meant that credit cards became an effective way for those who were travelling around

6201-487: The 80386 and 80486 CPU bus. The PC/104 bus is an embedded bus that copies the ISA bus. Intel launched their PCI bus chipsets along with the P5 -based Pentium CPUs in 1993. The PCI bus was introduced in 1991 as a replacement for ISA. The standard (now at version 3.0) is found on PC motherboards to this day. The PCI standard supports bus bridging: as many as ten daisy-chained PCI buses have been tested. CardBus , using

6318-486: The 95LX. New Media Corporation was one of the first companies established for the express purpose of manufacturing PC Cards; they became a major OEM for laptop manufacturers such as Toshiba and Compaq for PC Card products. It soon became clear that the PCMCIA card standard needed expansion to support "smart" I/O cards to address the emerging need for fax, modem, LAN, harddisk and floppy disk cards. It also needed interrupt facilities and hot plugging , which required

6435-630: The ExpressCard interface. From about 2006, ExpressCard slots replaced PCMCIA slots in laptop computers, with a few laptops having both in the transition period. ExpressCard and CardBus sockets are physically and electrically incompatible. ExpressCard-to-CardBus and Cardbus-to-ExpressCard adapters are available that connect a Cardbus card to an Expresscard slot, or vice versa, and carry out the required electrical interfacing. These adapters do not handle older non-Cardbus PCMCIA cards. PC Card devices can be plugged into an ExpressCard adaptor, which provides

6552-553: The IBM AT bus after other types were developed. Users of the ISA bus had to have in-depth knowledge of the hardware they were adding to properly connect the devices, since memory addresses, I/O port addresses, and DMA channels had to be configured by switches or jumpers on the card to match the settings in driver software. IBM's MCA bus, developed for the PS/2 in 1987, was a competitor to ISA, also their design, but fell out of favor due to

6669-525: The ISA's industry-wide acceptance and IBM's licensing of MCA. EISA, the 32-bit extended version of ISA championed by Compaq , was used on some PC motherboards until 1997, when Microsoft declared it a "legacy" subsystem in the PC 97 industry white-paper. Proprietary local buses (q.v. Compaq) and then the VESA Local Bus Standard, were late 1980s expansion buses that were tied but not exclusive to

6786-589: The PC Card design. CardBus supports bus mastering , which allows a controller on the bus to talk to other devices or memory without going through the CPU . Many chipsets, such as those that support Wi-Fi , are available for both PCI and CardBus. The notch on the left hand front of the device is slightly shallower on a CardBus device so, by design, a 32-bit device cannot be plugged into earlier equipment supporting only 16-bit devices. Most new slots accept both CardBus and

6903-444: The U.S. regulations. Many banks now also offer the option of electronic statements, either in lieu of or in addition to physical statements, which can be viewed at any time by the cardholder via the issuer's online banking website. Notification of the availability of a new statement is generally sent to the cardholder's email address. If the card issuer has chosen to allow it, the cardholder may have other options for payment besides

7020-439: The United States, however. A secured credit card is a type of credit card secured by a deposit account owned by the cardholder. Typically, the cardholder must deposit between 100% and 200% of the total amount of credit desired. Thus if the cardholder puts down $ 1,000, they will be given credit in the range of $ 500–1,000. In some cases, credit card issuers will offer incentives even on their secured card portfolios. In these cases,

7137-582: The addition of interrupts and DMA provided by Intel add-on chips, and a few system fault detection lines (Power Good, Memory Check, I/O Channel Check). Again, PCjr sidecars are not technically expansion cards, but expansion modules, with the only difference being that the sidecar is an expansion card enclosed in a plastic box (with holes exposing the connectors). Laptops are generally unable to accept most expansion cards intended for desktop computers. Consequently, several compact expansion standards were developed. The original PC Card expansion card standard

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7254-760: The ancestor of MasterCard was born when a group of banks established Master Charge to compete with BankAmericard; it received a significant boost when Citibank merged its own Everything Card , launched in 1967, into Master Charge in 1969. Early credit cards in the U.S., of which BankAmericard was the most prominent example, were mass-produced and mass mailed unsolicited to bank customers who were thought to be low risk. According to LIFE , cards were "mailed off to unemployable people, drunks, narcotics addicts and to compulsive debtors," which Betty Furness , President Johnson's Special Assistant, compared to "giving sugar to diabetics ." These mass mailings were known as "drops" in banking terminology, and were outlawed in 1970 due to

7371-432: The balance to be repaid in full each month, or at the end of each statement cycle. In contrast, credit cards allow consumers to build a continuing balance of debt, subject to interest being charged at a specific rate . A credit card also differs from a charge card in that a credit card typically involves a third-party entity that pays the seller, and is reimbursed by the buyer, whereas a charge card simply defers payment by

7488-415: The bank and to easily look up past transactions for reconciliation and budgeting. The register is a personal record of banking transactions used for credit card purchases as they affect funds in the bank account or the available credit. In addition to checking numbers and so forth the code column indicates the credit card. The balance column shows available funds after purchases. When the credit card payment

7605-430: The basic functionality of an electronic device, such as when a certain model has features added to it and is released as a new or separate model. Rather than redesigning the first model completely, a daughterboard may be added to a special connector on the main board. These usually fit on top of and parallel to the board, separated by spacers or standoffs , and are sometimes called mezzanine cards due to being stacked like

7722-413: The beginning of the 21st century, it was common for a merchant to accept a charge, especially below a threshold value or from a known and trusted customer, without verifying it by phone. Books with lists of stolen card numbers were distributed to merchants who were supposed in any case to check cards against the list before accepting them, as well as verifying the signature on the charge slip against that on

7839-493: The billing cycle, the outstanding balance will increase in what is called negative amortization . This practice tends to increase credit risk and mask the lender's portfolio quality and consequently has been banned in the U.S. since 2003. Credit card advertising regulations in the U.S. include the Schumer box disclosure requirements. A large fraction of junk mail consists of the credit card offers created from lists provided by

7956-401: The board for limited changes or customization. Since reliable multi-pin connectors are relatively costly, some mass-market systems such as home computers had no expansion slots and instead used a card-edge connector at the edge of the main board, putting the costly matching socket into the cost of the peripheral device. In the case of expansion of on-board capability, a motherboard may provide

8073-466: The booklets readily enable the location of a card's current available credit when ten or more cards are in use. Business credit cards are specialized credit cards issued in the name of a registered business, and typically they can only be used for business purposes. Their use has grown in recent decades. In 1998, for instance, 37% of small businesses reported using a business credit card; by 2009, this number had grown to 64%. Business credit cards offer

8190-411: The buyer until a later date. A credit card also differs from a debit card , which can be used like currency by the owner of the card. As of June 2018, there were 7.753 billion credit cards in the world. In 2020, there were 1.09 billion credit cards in circulation in the United States, and 72.5% of adults (187.3 million) in the country had at least one credit card. The size of most credit cards

8307-433: The card. Merchants who failed to take the time to follow the proper verification procedures were liable for fraudulent charges, but because of the cumbersome nature of the procedures, merchants would often simply skip some or all of them and assume the risk for smaller transactions. The early credit card industry in the United States was characterized by regional monopolies. Several landmark anti-trust court cases, including

8424-438: The cardholder is sent a statement indicating the purchases made with the card, any outstanding fees, the total amount owed and the minimum payment due. In the U.S., after receiving the statement, the cardholder may dispute any charges that are thought to be incorrect (see 15 U.S.C.   § 1643 , which limits cardholder liability for unauthorized use of a credit card to $ 50). The Fair Credit Billing Act gives details of

8541-452: The computer to connect to certain kinds of networks that it previously could not connect to, or to allow for users to customize their computers for various purposes such as gaming. Daughterboards are sometimes used in computers in order to allow for expansion cards to fit parallel to the motherboard, usually to maintain a small form factor . This form are also called riser cards , or risers. Daughterboards are also sometimes used to expand

8658-596: The computer, (processor, memory, and I/O) plugged into a card cage which passively distributed signals and power between the cards. Proprietary bus implementations for systems such as the Apple II co-existed with multi-manufacturer standards. IBM introduced what would retroactively be called the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus with the IBM PC in 1981. At that time, the technology

8775-420: The counter at a bank or other financial agency, up to a certain limit; for a credit card, this will be the credit limit (or some percentage of it). Cash advances often incur a fee of 3 to 5 percent of the amount being borrowed. When made on a credit card, the interest is often higher than other credit card transactions. The interest compounds daily starting from the day cash is borrowed. Some purchases made with

8892-413: The country to move their credit to places where they could not directly use their banking facilities. There are now countless variations on the basic concept of revolving credit for individuals (as issued by banks and honored by a network of financial institutions), including organization-branded credit cards, corporate-user credit cards and store cards. In 1966, Barclaycard in the United Kingdom launched

9009-399: The date of each purchase if the total balance is not paid. For example, if a user had a $ 1,000 transaction and repaid it in full within this grace period, there would be no interest charged. If, however, even $ 1.00 of the total amount remained unpaid, interest would be charged on the $ 1,000 from the date of purchase until the payment is received. The precise manner in which interest is charged

9126-533: The definition of new BIOS and operating system interfaces. This led to the introduction of release 2.0 of the PCMCIA standard and JEIDA 4.1 in September 1991, which saw corrections and expansion with Card Services (CS) in the PCMCIA 2.1 standard in November 1992. To recognize increased scope beyond memory, and to aid in marketing, the association acquired the rights to the simpler term "PC Card" from IBM . This

9243-399: The deposit required may be significantly less than the required credit limit and can be as low as 10% of the desired credit limit. This deposit is held in a special savings account . Credit card issuers offer this because they have noticed that delinquencies were notably reduced when the customer perceives something to lose if the balance is not repaid. The cardholder of a secured credit card

9360-412: The discretion of the issuing bank, and payments will therefore usually be allocated towards the lowest rate balances until paid in full before any money is paid towards higher rate balances. Interest rates can vary considerably from card to card, and the interest rate on a particular card may jump dramatically if the card user is late with a payment on that card or any other credit instrument , or even if

9477-468: The electrical contact between the electronics on the card and on the motherboard. Peripheral expansion cards generally have connectors for external cables. In the PC-compatible personal computer, these connectors were located in the support bracket at the back of the cabinet. Industrial backplane systems had connectors mounted on the top edge of the card, opposite to the backplane pins. Depending on

9594-455: The financial chaos they caused. However, by the time the law came into effect, approximately 100 million credit cards had been dropped into the U.S. population. After 1970, only credit card applications could be sent unsolicited in mass mailings. This system was computerized in 1973 under the leadership of Dee Hock , the first CEO of Visa, allowing reduced transaction time. However, until always-connected payment terminals became ubiquitous at

9711-472: The first credit card outside the United States. Although credit cards reached very high adoption levels in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand during the latter 20th century, many cultures were more cash-oriented or developed alternative forms of cashless payments, such as Carte bleue or the Eurocard (Germany, France, Switzerland, and others). In these places, the adoption of credit cards

9828-449: The form of "daughterboards" that plug into connectors on a supporting system board. In personal computing , notable expansion buses and expansion card standards include the S-100 bus from 1974 associated with the CP/M operating system , the 50-pin expansion slots of the original Apple II computer from 1977 (unique to Apple), IBM's Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) introduced with

9945-579: The formatting and organization of the data on the card. The CIS also contains information such as: When a card is unrecognized it is frequently because the CIS information is either lost or damaged. ExpressCard is a later specification from the PCMCIA, intended as a replacement for PC Card, built around the PCI Express and USB 2.0 standards. The PC Card standard is closed to further development and PCMCIA strongly encourages future product designs to utilize

10062-432: The individual account number, and the final digit is a validity check digit. Both of these standards are maintained and further developed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 17/WG 1 . Credit cards have a magnetic stripe conforming to the ISO/IEC 7813 . Most modern credit cards use smart card technology: they have a computer chip embedded in them as a security feature. In addition, complex smart cards, including peripherals such as

10179-402: The issuing bank decides to raise its revenue. A credit card's grace period is the time the cardholder has to pay the balance before interest is assessed on the outstanding balance. Grace periods may vary but usually range from 20 to 55 days depending on the type of credit card and the issuing bank. Some policies allow for reinstatement after certain conditions are met. Usually, if a cardholder

10296-414: The laptop has an IOMMU that is configured to thwart these attacks. One notable exception to the above is the inclusion of a single internal slot for a special reduced size version of the desktop standard. The most well known examples are Mini-PCI or Mini PCIe . Such slots were usually intended for a specific purpose such as offering "built-in" wireless networking or upgrading the system at production with

10413-483: The largest of merchants; although stored value cards (such as telephone cards ) are used as alternative currencies , the trend is toward RFID -based systems inside cards, cellphones, and other objects. The design of the credit card itself has become a major selling point in recent years. A growing field of numismatics (study of money), or more specifically exonumia (study of money-like objects), credit card collectors seek to collect various embodiments of credit from

10530-526: The logical PCI protocol over a serial communication interface. PC/104(-Plus) or Mini PCI are often added for expansion on small form factor boards such as Mini-ITX . For their 1000 EX and 1000 HX models, Tandy Computer designed the PLUS expansion interface, an adaptation of the XT-bus supporting cards of a smaller form factor. Because it is electrically compatible with the XT bus (a.k.a. 8-bit ISA or XT-ISA),

10647-422: The major credit reporting agencies . In the United States, the three major U.S. credit bureaus ( Equifax , TransUnion and Experian ) allow consumers to opt out from related credit card solicitation offers via its Opt Out Pre Screen program. Credit card issuers usually waive interest charges if the balance is paid in full each month, but typically will charge full interest on the entire outstanding balance from

10764-401: The merchant not disclose the actual nature of the transactions, these will be processed as regular credit card transactions. Many merchants have passed on the credit card processing fees to the credit card holders in spite of the credit card network's guidelines, which state the credit card holders should not have any extra fee for doing a transaction with a credit card. Under card scheme rules,

10881-412: The minimum payment by the due date, the issuer may impose a late fee or other penalties. To help mitigate this, some financial institutions can arrange for automatic payments to be deducted from the cardholder's bank account, thus avoiding such penalties altogether, as long as the cardholder has sufficient funds. In cases where the minimum payment is less than the finance charges and fees assessed during

10998-500: The now familiar plastic cards to older paper merchant cards, and even metal tokens that were accepted as merchant credit cards. Early credit cards were made of celluloid plastic, then metal and fiber , then paper, and are now mostly polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. However, the chip part of credit cards is made from metals. A cash advance is a credit card transaction that withdraws cash rather than purchasing something. The process can take place either through an ATM or over

11115-407: The original 16-bit PC Card devices. CardBus cards can be distinguished from older cards by the presence of a gold band with eight small studs on the top of the card next to the pin sockets. The speed of CardBus interfaces in 32-bit burst mode depends on the transfer type: in byte mode, transfer is 33 MB/s; in word mode it is 66 MB/s; and in dword (double-word) mode 132 MB/s. CardBay

11232-439: The owner's personal credit, or only do so if the account is delinquent. In these cases, the activity of the business is separated from the owner's personal credit activity. Business credit cards are offered by American Express, Discover, and almost all major issuers of Visa and MasterCard cards. Some local banks and credit unions also offer business credit cards. American Express is the only major issuer of business charge cards in

11349-440: The percentage market penetration levels achieved in the U.S., Canada, and U.K. In some countries, acceptance still remains low as the use of a credit card system depends on the banking system of each country; while in others, a country sometimes had to develop its own credit card network, e.g. U.K.'s Barclaycard and Australia 's Bankcard . Japan remains a very cash-oriented society, with credit card adoption being limited mainly to

11466-482: The plates were kept in the issuing store rather than held by customers. When an authorized user made a purchase, a clerk retrieved the plate from the store's files and then processed the purchase. Charga-Plates sped up back-office bookkeeping and reduced copying errors that were done manually in paper ledgers in each store. In 1934, American Airlines and the Air Transport Association simplified

11583-430: The previous or old balance, excluding new transactions. The flow of information and money between these parties—always through the card associations—is known as the interchange, and it consists of a few steps. A credit card register is a transaction register used to ensure the increasing balance owed from using a credit card is enough below the credit limit to deal with authorization holds and payments not yet received by

11700-483: The process even more with the advent of the Air Travel Card . They created a numbering scheme that identified the issuer of the card as well as the customer account. This is the reason the modern UATP cards still start with the number 1. With an Air Travel Card, passengers could "buy now, and pay later" for a ticket against their credit and receive a fifteen percent discount at any of the accepting airlines. By

11817-399: The result by 365 and then take this total and multiply by the total number of days the amount revolved before payment was made on the account. Financial institutions refer to interest charged back to the original time of the transaction and up to the time a payment was made, if not in full, as a residual retail finance charge (RRFC). Thus after an amount has revolved and a payment has been made,

11934-462: The same 68-pin PC Card connectors and corresponds to the PC Card form factor in many other ways. Expansion card In computing , an expansion card (also called an expansion board , adapter card , peripheral card or accessory card ) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector , or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slot) on a computer's motherboard (see also backplane ) to add functionality to

12051-547: The same as expansion cards, are not technically expansion cards, due to their physical form. The primary purpose of an expansion card is to provide or expand on features not offered by the motherboard. For example, the original IBM PC did not have on-board graphics or hard drive capability. In that case, a graphics card and an ST-506 hard disk controller card provided graphics capability and hard drive interface respectively. Some single-board computers made no provision for expansion cards, and may only have provided IC sockets on

12168-412: The same card was expanded in 1950 by Ralph Schneider and Frank McNamara , founders of Diners Club , to consolidate multiple cards. The Diners Club, which was created partially through a merger with Dine and Sign, produced the first "general purpose" charge card and required the entire bill to be paid with each statement. That was followed by Carte Blanche and in 1958 by American Express which created

12285-466: The same sets of extra codes nor do they use the same number of digits. Credit card numbers and cardholder names were originally embossed, to allow for easy transfer of such information to charge slips printed on carbon paper forms. With the decline of paper slips, some credit cards are no longer embossed and in fact the card number is no longer in the front. In addition, some cards are now vertical in design, rather than horizontal. The concept of using

12402-406: The same size as a credit card . The original standard was defined for both 5  V and 3.3 volt cards, with 3.3 V cards having a key on the side to prevent them from being inserted fully into a 5 V-only slot. Some cards and some slots operate at both voltages as needed. The original standard was built around an 'enhanced' 16-bit ISA bus platform. A newer version of the PCMCIA standard

12519-582: The second slot as a place to put an active heat sink with a fan. Some cards are "low-profile" cards, meaning that they are shorter than standard cards and will fit in a lower height computer chassis such as HTPC and SFF . (There is a "low profile PCI card" standard that specifies a much smaller bracket and board area). The group of expansion cards that are used for external connectivity, such as network , SAN or modem cards, are commonly referred to as input/output cards (or I/O cards). A daughterboard , daughtercard , mezzanine board or piggyback board

12636-506: The size and features of Type I cards: CompactFlash , MiniCard , P2 Card and SmartMedia . For example, the PC Card electrical specification is also used for CompactFlash, so a PC Card CompactFlash adapter can be a passive physical adapter rather than requiring additional circuitry. CompactFlash is a smaller dimensioned 50 pin subset of the 68 pin PC Card interface. It requires a setting for the interface mode of either "memory" or " ATA storage". The EOMA68 open-source hardware standard uses

12753-546: The time as "SunDisk") launched its PCMCIA card in October 1992. The company was the first to introduce a writeable Flash RAM card for the HP 95LX (an early MS-DOS pocket computer). These cards conformed to a supplemental PCMCIA-ATA standard that allowed them to appear as more conventional IDE hard drives to the 95LX or a PC. This had the advantage of raising the upper limit on capacity to the full 32 MB available under DOS 3.22 on

12870-415: The unpaid balance if the billed amount is not paid in full (typically at a much higher rate than most other forms of debt). This impact accounts for roughly 8% of all interest ever paid. Thus, hiding the minimum payment option for automatic and manual payments and focusing on the total debt may mitigate the unwanted consequences of default minimum payments. In addition, if the cardholder fails to make at least

12987-435: The user of the card will still receive interest charges on their statement after paying the next statement in full (in fact the statement may only have a charge for interest that collected up until the date the full balance was paid, i.e. when the balance stopped revolving). The credit card may simply serve as a form of revolving credit , or it may become a complicated financial instrument with multiple balance segments each at

13104-400: The user. Other computer buses were used for industrial control, instruments, and scientific systems. One specific example is HP-IB (or Hewlett Packard Interface Bus) which was ultimately standardized as IEEE-488 (aka GPIB). Some well-known historical standards include VMEbus , STD Bus , SBus (specific to Sun's SPARCStations), and numerous others. Many other video game consoles such as

13221-404: Was an early predecessor of the credit card and was used in the U.S. from the 1930s to the late 1950s. It was a 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 -by- 1 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch (64 mm × 32 mm) rectangle of sheet metal related to Addressograph and military dog tag systems. It was embossed with the customer's name, city, and state. It held a small paper card on its back for a signature. In recording

13338-459: Was called the PC bus . The IBM XT , introduced in 1983, used the same bus (with slight exception). The 8-bit PC and XT bus was extended with the introduction of the IBM AT in 1984. This used a second connector for extending the address and data bus over the XT, but was backward compatible; 8-bit cards were still usable in the AT 16-bit slots. Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) became the designation for

13455-420: Was initially much slower. Due to strict regulations regarding bank overdrafts, some countries, France in particular, were much quicker to develop and adopt chip-based credit cards which are seen as major anti-fraud credit devices. Debit cards , online banking , ATMs , mobile banking , and installment plans are used more widely than credit cards in some countries. It took until the 1990s to reach anything like

13572-673: Was published by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association in November 1990 and was soon adopted by more than eighty vendors. It corresponds with the Japanese JEIDA memory card 4.0 standard. It was originally developed to support Memory cards . Intel authored the Exchangable Card Architecture (ExCA) specification, but later merged this into the PCMCIA. SanDisk (operating at

13689-457: Was the name of the standard from version 2 of the specification onwards. These cards were used for wireless networks , modems, and other functions in notebook PCs. After the release of PCIe -based ExpressCard in 2003, laptop manufacturers started to fit ExpressCard slots to new laptops instead of PC Card slots. All PC Card devices use a similar sized package which is 85.6 millimetres (3.37 in) long and 54.0 millimetres (2.13 in) wide,

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