- Tor Sørnes
Tor Sørnes, 1925-, is an inventor, engineer and the inventor of the first recodable
keycard lock (the VingCard) and themagnetic stripe keycard lock . He was born November 11th 1925 in Sola,Norway . He is the son of inventor, radio technician andclock makerRasmus Sørnes .In 1975 Tor Sørnes launched the first recodeable cardkey lock, the VingCard, which used a holecard plastic key. He then led the development of and patented the electronickeycard lock , based on themagnetic stripe key.Being the son of an inventor, Tor Sørnes occupied himself with technical matters already as a child. In 1950 he was employed a production planner at steel and ironware factory Christiania Staal & Jernvarefabrikk in Moss. The factory made locks and
ice skate s under the brand Ving. In 1955 he became the factory's machine constructor and when the factory in 1960—as one of the first in the country—established a department of research and development, he was its director. In 1975 he launched the holecard based recodeablekeycard lock , where each new hotel guest could have his/her own unique key formed by a pattern of 32 holes in a plastic card. The invention is still in worldwide hotel security use under the brand VingCard. The 32 holes in the key gave 4.2 billion combinations, the precise same number as the population of the planet at the time. This lock system was patented in 29 countries.Export of the system was initialized in 1978 when it was installed Peachtree Plaza Hotel in
Atlanta , Georgia, at the time the world's tallest hotel. The hotel had been troubled by burglaries and was eager to test new security innovations.In 1992-93 the electronic
magnetic stripe card lock was launched and became a world wide succes. Tor Sørnes continued as a vice president and director of R&D at VingCard until retirement in 1992.
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