[gpm]

A credit card imprinting machine [1], and paper records of inventory change that can be uploaded afterwards.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7wutgAlNHk

A few years ago, during a power outage, a stores clerk actually used one of these for/on me. I was pretty shocked ;)

[ceejayoz]

Most of my cards don’t have embossed numbers these days.

[reaperducer]

The embossing is a convenience. The clerk writes the number in the space provided if there is no embossed number.

They did the same thing in the 70's if your card was worn down. This is a solved problem.

[gpm]

Strange, I think all credit (not debit) cards here do. Might be regional.

[kzrdude]

In sweden they don't - at least not on the debit cards, which are common. They also just removed the holder's signature field too, nobody ever uses that (it's authenticated with pin + optional ID).

[wrycoder]

I'm in the US - my latest Mastercard has chip and stripe, but no embossing. The number, exp, and cvv are all on the backside.