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PC/SC software

Products in the SpringCard CSB6 Family (CSB6, Prox'N'Roll, EasyFinger and CrazyWriter) are PC/SC compliant smartcard readers.

The following documents and free softwares are useful to start working with your new SpringCard PC/SC reader.

A short introduction

PC/SC is the de-facto standard to interface Personal Computers with Smart Cards (and smartcard readers/writers of course), and is available on most operating systems, including Windows and Linux.

There are plenty of documents and tutorials regarding the PC/SC API are available on the web, including the reference documentation on MSDN. Anyway, if you're still unfamiliar with the API, we've written a short manual that is your recommended starting point :

 SpringCard's Simplified documentation of the PC/SC API

As PC/SC has been designed for smartcards -and at a period where smartcards were only contact cards-, there's nothing immediate when it goes to contactless cards not to mention contactless memory cards (such as Mifare for instance).

Fortunately, SpringCard CSB6 family makes it easy to work with those cards, thanks to an embedded APDU interpreter, that translates "classical smartcard commands" into efficient sequences to read and write contactless memory cards and RFID tags.

The relevant documentation is to be found in this manual :

 CSB6 Family : PC/SC vendor specific attributes and commands

(This manual also provides information on accessing reader's serial number, driving the LED/buzzer and the RF field, and more).

Software

SpringCard PC/SC Quickstart

SpringCard PC/SC Quickstart is a set of sample applications, you may download for free.

You may use the applications free of charge, but you must observe the terms of our license.

The source code of those applications is also available for registered customers, within the free PC/SC SDK.

SpringCard PC/SC Quickstart includes :

PC/SC Diag

PC/SC Diag is a quick'n'dirty software to exchange APDU with smartcards or contactless cards, and also control commands with SpringCard PC/SC readers.

Source code is available in the PC/SC SDK (Win32 native, written in C++ with MFC).

 PC/SC Diagnostic

C# Scriptor

C# Scriptor is a basic PC/SC scripting tool, to send APDU commands to a smartcard using a batch file or manual entries.

Source code is available in the PC/SC SDK (requires the .NET framework, written in C#).

 csScriptor

SCardToolkit

SCardToolkit is an advanced software to explore any smartcard on the APDU level. SCardToolkit is highly expandable, yet comes this an impressive list of the APDU supported by current contactless cards.

Source code is available in the PC/SC SDK (requires the .NET framework, written in C#).

 SCardToolkit

Card Tool

Card Tool allows you to read/write several types of card in a "Hexadecimal editor" interface.

Cards currently implemented :
- 14443 : Mifare 1K, 4K, Ultralight, Ultralight C ; ASCK CTS ; ST SR 176 B
- 15693 : ST LRI; Tag it; Icode; Picotag; NXP Icode1(readonly for this card)
- Topaz NFC Tag by Innovision
Implementation with any other card also available, as long as your card is compatible with our PC/SC readers.

Source code is available in the PC/SC SDK (requires the .NET framework, written in C#).

 cardTool

Open-source PC/SC software

gScriptor for Windows

gScriptor is a basic PC/SC scripting tool, to send commands to a smart card using a batch file or manual entries.

gScriptor is open-source software released under GPL ; authors are Lionel Victor and Ludovic Rousseau (official project homepage).

gScriptor is written in Perl+GTK. Our setup program for Windows includes the Perl+GTK runtime.

 Smartcard scripting tool (Perl + GTK, PC/SC)

Other resources

CodeProject

www.codeproject.com is a web board full of really interesting tutorials and resources for developers.

Don't miss the two interesting articles (with comprehensive and reusable source code) written by Olivier Rouit :

The tutorial How to access smartcards simply and effectively contains Visual C++ source code that is a little more object-oriented than the ones in our SDK.

SCardSoft

SCardSoft is a small company based in Ukraine. They offer Smart Card ToolSet PRO, a useful application to work with smartcards at low level, and also SCard X Easy, an ActiveX control that makes it easy to work with smartcards from virtually any application or language supporting the ActiveX technology.