Smartcard reader/writer part 1

Although they look like any ordinary plastic chipcard of the synchronous type, Smartcards are functionally very different because they have an internal microprocessor rather than just an amount of nonvolatile memory. A complete microprocessor system by itself, the Smartcard can only function by means of an asynchronous dialogue with a special reader unit. This article describes such a reader, which, as you may have guessed, works in combination with a PC.