Method and apparatus for interfacing smart cards with terminals.

摘要

The present invention relates to a method and to an apparatus for interfacing smart cards with any terminal. The memory capacity and the features of smart cards are increasing exponentially. Therefore a terminal with a card reader designed today will hardly be able to follow future evolution of smart cards. The invention uses a process which allows efficient use of the smart card capacities by actual terminals. This process is based on the following architecture: A terminal equipped with a display, a pointing device (e.g. a keyboard), a smart card reader and a smart card are combined together. The terminal must have the following capacities which are quite normal: to display a list of action which will be described in ASCII characters; to select actions; to enter key sequences; to display messages and clear them afterwards. A communication protocol between the smart card and the terminal is implemented in the terminal comprising special commands. <IMAGE>