A process for encoding and decoding data on the magnetic stripe of a card at any bit density is provided. Data is read from the magnetic stripe of a card and transmitted to a single board computer. The single board computer receives the data and determines if the bit density of the card is supported by the computer. If the bit density is supported, the data is sent to a demodulator object to be demodulated and converted to a data stream of ASCII characters. The data stream is then decoded, unpacked and sent to a ticket validator to check the validity of the data. If the bit density is not supported by the computer, a demodulator object supporting the bit density can be instantiated.