[wunderkind]

Are there smart card readers compatible with Mac and Panther?

Here's a little bit of information from FAQs for Blue Card from American Express:

------------------------------
When will the Serial and/or USB Reader be compatible with Macintosh platforms?

The American Express Smart Card Reader is not currently compatible with the Mac due to the fact that Mac does not support the smart card base components necessary for our Reader to operate. Mac has had the smart card base component software in development, however, we do not have a timeline as to when it will be available. Until Mac makes this software available, American Express Readers will not be compatible with the Mac.
-------------------------------

For those who do not know - Blue from AmEx has built-in smart chip that can be used to store a variety of data.

Thanks.

[Diggory Laycock]

from: http://developer.apple.com/security/

Smart Card Services (PC/SC) SDK
The PC/SC Workgroup is a collaborative effort of leading international personal computer and smart card companies, united to integrate their technologies under common standards. Apple is a Core Member of the PC/SC Workgroup along with Bull Personal Transaction Systems, Gemplus, Hewlett-Packard, Infineon, Intel, Microsoft, Schlumberger, Sun Microsystems and Toshiba.


PC/SC is a standard that builds upon existing industry smart card standards - ISO7816 and EMV - and complements them by defining low-level device interfaces and device-independent application APIs as well as resource management, to allow multiple applications to share smart card devices attached to a system.


The Smart Card Services SDK enables developers to write PC/SC-compliant applications and drivers on Mac_OS_X starting with Mac_OS_X 10.0.2.


The Smart Card Services SDK is available from Apple's Open Source repository. Access requires agreeing to the Apple Public Source License.

http://www.opensource.apple.com/darw...rtCardServices

The SDK seems available now - (although that last link crashes Safari for me - anyone else?)


As for hardware - yes there are several USB SmartCard readers that will work with OS X - give google a go and it should turn up some results.