I have several cards, from different manufacturers. How can I differentiate them? How can I retrieve their characteristics?

If your reader is from the CSB6 Family (CSB6, Prox’N’Roll PC/SC, EasyFinger and CrazyWriter), we provide a free software application in our "SDK for PC/SC" (link: https://www.springcard.com/fr/download/sdks) named "PC/SC Diagnostic".

Please open this application and putt a card on your reader then you will be able to read the ATR's card.
With this ATR number go to this website : http://ludovic.rousseau.free.fr/softwares/pcsc-tools/smartcard_list.txt, and search it.

It will be return the informations you need.

Posted in: General

Definitioner

PC/SC

The de-facto standard to interface Personal Computers with Smart Cards (and smartcard readers of course). SpringCard PC/SC Readers comply with this standard. This makes those products usable on most operating systems, using an high-level and standardized API.

ATR

Answer to reset: A message that is returned by a smartcard when it is powered up or when its reset pin is activated. The ATR indicates the card type, communication protocol and other basic information.

reader (Microprocessor-based card)

An ICC (or a PICC) whose chip is a small computer. This is the case of high-end cards used in payment, transport, eID/passports, access control... Key features are security, ability to store a large amount of data and to run an application inside the chip. Most of the time they implement the command set defined by ISO 7816-4.

reader (CD)

Coupling device or coupler. A device able to communicate with an ICC. This is what everybody calls a smartcard reader. Technically speaking it could be seen as a gateway between the computer and the card.