Well, I've had some interesting experiences with PCSC and the OCF bridge.
Firstly, PCSC by itself. From my experience, for serial smart card readers,
PCSC sees the reader if and only if the reader is attached, powered up and
has a card in it when the PC boots. Each PCSC driver is given the chance to
see if a reader is there it recognises, and if it is, it is given control of
it. I think Dave is right - from that point onwards PCSC has total control
of that com port, even if you remove the card. You have to reboot to get
the port back (without a reader attached, of course).
What's even worse is PCSC for PCMCIA. It seems that PCSC grabs a PCMCIA
reader each time it is inserted - THERE IS NO ESCAPE ! I installed the
latest GPR400 (a fine reader, BTW) driver from Gemplus just before a demo at
the Gemplus Developers Conference only to have the software stop working
altogether. After calming down I removed the PCSC components form the
laptop and everything worked fine again. (This was using a non-OCF Java
driver for the reader).
I've used the PCSC readers in conjunction with the Schlumberger Cyberflex
SDK, and it's worked fine with the GPR400 and the Litronic 210, so PCSC for
Win32 applications seems fine. However, I haven't been able to use the PCSC
OCF bridge successfully (this is with OCF 1.1). Trying with a variety of
readers has had varied results, non working 100%.
It seems to me that the OCF PCSC bridge is crucial to the future of OCF, as
MS is to ship PCSC as standard with Windows2000. If anyone has had success
using the PCSC <-> OCF bridge please let the mailing list know.
All opinions strictly my own, of course, and not my employers.
Jon.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Durbin [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: 30 June 1999 12:13
> To: Kasselman, P. (Pieter); [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [OCF] GCR410P Readers and OCF Terminal Services
>
> Pieter,
>
> A follow up thought from one of my colleagues -- have you tried using the
> OCF/PCSC
> bridging code ?
>
> This would let you write your high level code in Java whilst maintaining a
> PCSC
> driver at the low level and circumventing the javax.comm issues. You
> would of
> course lose portability but since you have a PnP reader you have done that
> already.
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Dave Durbin wrote:
>
> > Pieter,
> >
> > I'm sorry but I am not able to help you on this one. PCSC is not an area
> > in which I have tremendous experience.
> >
> > The following is entirely supposition. It would be interesting to hear
> > from Someone Who Knows These Things.
> >
> > My strong suspicion is that PCSC grabs the COM port whenever a smartcard
> > reader is registered with it since it (presumably) polls all attached
> > devices to determine if a card has been inserted.
> >
> > If this is the case then I can't see how PCSC can co-exist with
> > javax.comm.
> >
> > I presume that disabling the device from the control panel simply
> > deregisters it from PCSC which perhaps then ( realizing that it has no
> > registered devices ) releases the COM port.
> >
> > Why this would prevent the card reader from interpreting commands sent
> > to it via the serial port, I do not understand. I can only assume that
> > the 410P uses some other resources ( otherwise why would it be PnP ).
> >
> > I suspect that there is in fact a driver for the GCR410P but that it was
> > installed with the W2K beta and thus not noticed by you.
> >
> > In summary, I can't help here. It seems as though you are stuck with
> > using either Windows and PnP with the 410P or java and the 410.
> > Hopefully I am wrong and someone can correct this perception.
> >
> > Good luck
> > Dave Durbin
> >
> > It seems to me that
> >
> > "Kasselman, P. (Pieter)" wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Dave, thanks for your comments. I think you are correct in your
> > > appraisal of the situation.
> > >
> > > I am using a Windows 2000 Professional workstation (Beta 3). We have
> > > some java and non-java apps that need to access the card
> > > reader/terminal. We bought the GCR410P specifically because it was
> > > supported by W2K (plug and play) and did not require any additional
> > > drivers to be installed (I assume the PCSC drivers are already
> > > installed into W2K). I tried disabling the device from the control
> > > panel. The COM port becomes available (i.e javax.comm does not
> > > complain) but then I can not get any response from the GCR410P.
> > >
> > > Any idea on how to disable the baked-in (Plug and Play) drivers and
> > > keeping the GCR410P functional? Are Plug and Play devices physically
> > > disabled (some enabling/disabling flag) when they are disabled from
> > > the Windows Control Panel? Is it possible to override this behaviour
> > > somehow?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > Pieter Kasselman
> > >
> > > Tel: +27-11-8814978
> > > Fax: +27-11-8813965
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Dave Durbin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 1999 10:35 AM
> > > To: Kasselman, P. (Pieter)
> > > Subject: Re: [OCF] GCR410P Readers and OCF Terminal Services
> > >
> > > When you upgraded, did you install PCSC drivers ?
> > >
> > > The most common cause of this error is PCSC drivers grabbing the
> > > serial
> > > port which prevents java.comm from using it and results in this
> > > apparent
> > > inability to communicate with the card reader.
> > >
> > > I have certainly seen it with the Litronic PCSC driver, and recommend
> > > that you investigate this area.
> > >
> > > Regards
> > > Dave
> > >
> > > "Kasselman, P. (Pieter)" wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I used the GCR410 with the OCF drivers as supplied by Gemplus and
> > > this
> > > > worked just fine with my Java Apps. I then "upgraded" to the GCR410P
> > >
> > > > (Plug and Play with Windows 2000) and found that the following error
> > >
> > > > appeared when I ran my OCF Java apps:
> > > >
> > > > CardTerminalException: javax.comm.PortInUseException: Port currently
> > >
> > > > owned by Unknown Windows Application
> > > >
> > > > When I go to the "Add/Remove Harware" section in control panel and
> > > > disable the GCR410P it appears that there is no communication
> > > between
> > > > the Java application and the Card reader (does not detect card
> > > > insert/remove for instance).
> > > >
> > > > 1) Is there a specific GCR410P OCF terminal service available.
> > > > 2) Is there some kind of fix (even if it is a quick and dirty)?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
> > > >
> > > > Pieter Kasselman
> > > >
> > > > Tel: +27-11-8814978
> > > > Fax: +27-11-8813965
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > JCP Computer Services Limited.
> > > 16 St. Johns Lane
> > > London EC1M 4BS
> > >
> > > www.jcp.co.uk
> > > Tel: +44 171 689 6890
> > >
> > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > --
> >
> > JCP Computer Services Limited.
> > 16 St. Johns Lane
> > London EC1M 4BS
> >
> > www.jcp.co.uk
> > Tel: +44 171 689 6890
> >
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > Visit the OpenCard Framework's WWW site at http://www.opencard.org/ for
> > access to documentation, code, presentations, and OCF announcements.
> >
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>
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