Greetings,
I am looking to build a building security system using either proximity tags or swipe cards, connnected to a single-board-computer control system that will present access logs, and accept authorisation commands from authorised users via a web browser.
The software side of things, I can deal with. I plan to run the entire thing on a network of 486-based wafer cards running Linux, provided that this is possible.
What I don't know about is how to interface card readers / prox.tag readers to these boards. Do these devices usually present some kind of RS-232 interface, or is it some weird custom thing that I am going to have major difficulties with?
Presumably, the interface presented varies from type to type, so Ideally, I'd like to find a basic reader that I can talk to / be-talked-to down a serial line.
Any suggestions?
Jim