Quickstart

Interfacing with a Smart Card

If you're new to SmartCache, follow these steps to get started.

• Download and install SmartCache.
• If you have a smart card reader, connect it to your PC.
• If you don't have a smart card reader, you can purchase one online for a reasonable price. We suggest the Omnikey Cardman 3021 reader. One such vendor is Amazon.
• Purchase an ACOS smart card. SmartCache supports ACOS1, ACOS2, ACOS3 and ACOS3X smart cards. These can be purchased online for a few dollars. We suggest the ACOS3 64 KB smart card.
• Once you have a smart card reader and an ACOS smart card, connect the reader to your PC and insert the smart card (contacts facing up for a PC/SC reader.
• Open SmartCache, click the Settings button, and select your smart card reader. Change any other settings as desired. Click the OK button.
• Click the Initialize button to initialize the smart card. Once the smart card is initialized, it does not need to be (and cannot be) initialized again.
• Click the Read button, then verify there are no records on the card.
• You can now add records to the list and save them to the smart card by clicking the Write Changes button.

Working with Files

In addition to saving data to a smart card, SmartCache allows you to save data to a file. All list operations are available regardless of whether the data is stored on a smart card or in a file. This means SmartCache is fully functional without a smart card reader or a smart card.

The data in the file is encrypted with 168-bit 3DES using a dynamic key and checksummed with a 64-bit CRC. Data in the records list is saved to a file by clicking the Save to File... button. You can password-protect the file. Files can be loaded by clicking the Load File... button or dragging and dropping a file onto SmartCache from Windows Explorer.

Transferring Data Between Smart Cards

If you initialized a smart card with a version of SmartCache earlier than 3.0, it is compatible with SmartCache 3.0. Still, the available capacity is fixed at 8 KB, regardless of the smart card's capacity. Furthermore, for ACOS2, ACOS3, and ACOS3X smart cards, which support faster read and write speeds, if they were initialized with a version of SmartCache earlier than 3.0, the read and write speeds are fixed at their slowest rates; these cannot be changed.

To take advantage of an ACOS smart card with an EEPROM size greater than 8 KB and higher read and write speeds, the smart card must be initialized with SmartCache 3.0. To transfer data from one smart card to another, perform the following steps using SmartCache 3.1.

• Insert the old smart card into the smart card reader, then click the Read button.
• Click the Save to File... button to save the data to a file.
• Insert the new smart card in the smart card reader and click the Initialize button.
• Click the Read button.
• Click the Load File... button and select the file saved in the second step.
• Click the Write Changes button to write the data to the smart card.
• Click the Read button and verify that the data was saved on the smart card.