Data system containing a high capacity optical contrast laser recordable wallet-size plastic card

A system for sequentially recording transaction data by means of a laser comprising,

• a wallet size card with a transparent plastic laminating material protectively bonded to a strip of high resolution direct-read-after-write optically reflective read laser recording material adhered to one side of the card, being laser recordable in place on said card and having a minimal laser recording capacity of 250,000 binary bits, having laser created data spots in a surrounding optically contrasting field of said strip, representing accumulated transaction data, with a dimension of said spots being less than 25 microns, the optical reflective contrast ratio of said spots with respect to the surrounding field being at least two to one,
• laser means having a beam disposed in laser writing relation with respect to said strip for writing said spots, representing transaction data, the spots having a size of less than 25 microns,
• a light detector means disposed in reading relation with respect to said strip for reading said spots, and
• means for providing relative motion between the laser beam and the card for sequentially reading transaction data on the card and writing transaction data onto said card in a permanent manner.