Smart Cards: A Primer
Develop on the Java Platform of the Future

Overview

This article, the first in a new Java Developer series on smart cards, will introduce you to smart card hows and whys. All you need is a smart card, a card reader, and software that lets you communicate with the card, and you can begin developing a real-world application. This article includes: a package to manipulate smart cards using ISO 7816; a demonstration of how to read and write data to a memory smart card using the Gemplus reader and a Gemplus smart card; and a discussion of some of the applications that make use of smart card memory features. Future articles will use cards by different manufacturers. We'll also touch on smart card standards.