Nothing is as hard as doing something for the first time. This is why we adopted the philosophy, of approaching the programming of smartcards in the most easy way one can achieve. This means basically that all you have to worry about is finding the right software for your system. We provide you with the skills necessary to successfully program a card with the files you created, downloaded or whereever you got them.

This is why all our programmers come with:

• All the cables required
• An AC-adapter for use with european mains current (some even 100-240volts!), no polarity regulator, no voltage switching (so it's absolutely fool-proof)
• All the software you need to program the cards that are supported with the programmer of your choice
• A crystal clear, step by step illustrated manual
• An exclusive disk or cdrom containing all the information with regards to the programmer!
• 100% support, by email or phone, both before as well as after the sale

A programmers main task is the programming of a smartcard. Most commonly used is the Goldcard, but the Piccard and the Piccard Gold are equal in regards to functionallity. The electronic components or building blocks they contain are all the same (een Programmable Interface Controller (PIC) 16f84 and an Electrically Eraseable Programmable Read Only Memory  (EEPROM) 24c16).

PIC/EEPROM Cards
The PIC can be seen a very limited processor, capable of interpreting  instructions and answering based on data comming from the EEPROM. At this point in time this is more than adequate for most popular applications.

The so called Piccard has 2 full size components (IC's) that can be removed from their sockets. All the other cards have premounted components (such as the Piccard Gold) or evenembedded components (such as the Goldcard). Please note that because they contain the same componentes, the functionality is all the same, files to be programmed are equal, it's just their appearance that is different! The main difference between the Piccard and the other 2 cards is, that it's approx. 1.5cm taller and thus cannot be used in a device with a lid in front of the card-reader (the lid will be prevented from closing).

Next to the piccards and -compatibles there are some other type of cards that currently do exactly the same as piccards, but are fundamentally different, such as the Atmel or Jupitercard, the JupiterII card or the funcard. The Atmel or Jupiter card is such a card, as well as the Jupiter II and the FUNcards.

The Piccard2

The latstes in the field of PIC cards is the Piccard2 (SMART) and the Piccard2RD. Both cards use the same software (for they have identical components), a PIC 16f876 (5x the speed of a pic 16f84) and a 24c64 EEPROM (this is 4x the size of that of a 'goldcard' or 'piccard'!). The reason for using this fast processor is because a lot of time is used to 'seek' through the EEPROM data!

- Piccard 2: This card has 7 contacts 'on the slot' and therefore each component can be addressed by the programmer directly (so without the need of a so called 'loader'). This card is perfect is you use either a JDM programmer or a Mastera multiprogrammer, because you will be able to program this card with great ease, merely by selecting each of the components.

- Piccard2 RD: this card has 5 contacts 'on the slot' and therefore has to be programmed with a 'loader'. Since we have not yet found a working loader for the 16f876 PIC, choosing this card with a multirprogrammer such as the mastera is not a really good choice. If you use a JDM programmer instead, you can easilly program this card, by removing the eeprom from its socket an d program it 'off card'.

- Piccard2 SMART: this card has 5 contacts 'on the slot' and therefore it should be programmed with a loader as well. The big advantage of this card is that it's the size of a regular creditcard. Since you obviously can not remove any components from the card, you can not program this card with a JDM programmer.

(NOTE: some newer software packages make it possible to program 5-contact cards without the use of a loader. However, this is very much programmer-dependant, so please contact us if you have a multiprogrammer and would like to program a piccard RD or SMART).

FUN Cards
These cards contain a 'genuine' processor, made my the Atmel company, instead of the PIC processor. The capacity of the AT90s8515 is about the same as the PIC 16f876 and the EEPROM is a 24c64 type.

We carry only the American 'Alpha Electronics' brand cards, giving you a fast and high quality credit-card size smartcard, with all it's advantages!

Jupiter Cards
Like the FUNCards, Jupiter cards have some sort of an Atmel processor making them excellent performance cards, for the data processing from the EEPROM is handled with great speed.

- Jupiter(1) cards
Jupter cards (or Jupiter1, Yupiter or plain 'Atmel' cards) are fast  cards containing a 24c16 EEPROM and a Atmel
90s2343 processor. This cards is a very commonly used card, but with the arrival of the Jupiter2 card, we expect this card to loose ground. You will find many applications for you Jupiter card, about equal to your goldcard!

- Jupiter2 cards
Jupiter2 cards are highly popular in the mediteranean. Since most cards arrived here from spain and we found many major manufacturing problems, we never gave this card  much faith. However, we are now able to offer you dutch-made jupiter2 cards with 100% quality, so our expectancy of this card is really high!

The Jupiter2 card contains a 24c64 EEPROM and the 'ludicrous' fast Atmel AT90s8535 processor. Nice detail for this card are the 7 status-LED's, giving you all sorts of information about what your cards is 'doing'.

Please note that for any type of  card, you will need different files in order to have this card working (they are all non-compatible!)

Other types of cards
We can give you dozens of other 'data' cards, cards that usually have some sort of an (e)eprom and nothing else. These cards are used in applications where security is not the biggest issue, such as exhibition data-tags etc. Some cards can be compared to a floppydisk, some are write once, read many (WORM),more like a CDROM. Bear in mind that the contents of an eeprom is a couple of kilobytes maximum, so the comparison is not really super.

Appart from this, we also know a lot of 'special application cars', think of your bank-card, phonecard, moneycard or mobile phonecard. In most cases these cards contain data that is the same for any card that is produced, but also contains some changeable data (such as your account balance, the expiration date of your perscription, or an addressbook). In nearly all cases these cards remain property of the issuer of this card and therefore it will be subject to a number of property rights. Most issuers of cards are not really fond of wizzkids messing around with 'their' smartcard, in some countries this may even be considered a crime.

In 98% of the special application cards, they are fitted with a specially designed and manufactured chip. On this chip all valid data is recorded, included any encryption algorithm, that may be necessary for the specific application. This is the reason why YOU SHOULD NOT (!!!) attempt to use any component programming software to read or modify the original card. YOU MAY (AND PROBABLY WILL) DAMAGE YOUR CARD FOR EVER! Please find out what type of card you are dealing with, before you stick it into your programmer and let software do it's thing.

A good example of an easilly modifyable, yet special dedicated chip, is a mobile phone (GSM) card. Use a program that is specially dedicated to this type of card to modify for instance your phonebook or Short Messages (you will find this software to go with our multiprogrammers).

If you want to modify any original card, please use software, specially for THIS card!

So, what card should i choose?

Because there are so many type of cards, it will be hard to make a choice. Most important is, that your card will do those things, that you expect it to be be doing, after you programmed it. Keep in mind that it is NEVER the card that will instruct what type of appication you will be doing, it will be your application that instructs what type of card you will be using!

This is why it is absolutely highly essential that you find the proper program files for your application, so you will be able to select a card that suits this application (PLEASE do NOT ask us about your application! For reasons obvious we CAN and WILL not help you with this!). The most popular card is (still) the Goldcard, but for application where a lot of data should be processed, you'd rather choose a funcard or piccard2.

We have no indication at all that any type of card is going to leave the market anytime soon now. Any popular card is able of creating a standard functionality, it's all depending on what data you have or can find for your card. From our own experience we can give you a 'popularity poll' on the most commonly used cards:

1. Goldcard (sufficient in 70% of all applications)
2. Piccard2, Funcard (sharing a second place, the field of application is for both cards equal)
3. Jupiter(1) kaart (golden oldy, still popular)
4. Jupiter2 kaart (brand new, but expected to move 'up' soon!)

A smartcard is a smartcard, right? Wrong. Definately the most dificult thing to manufacture is the creditcard sized type of smartcard. A lot of expertise is needed to create a high quality card. You should keep in mind that the chip-components on the card are only a fraction of a millimeter in size and attached to it there are 5 tiny wires connecting the chip to the 'golden contacts'. And this is not even the hard part, this is the same in a silicium based chip casing. But in this case the chips have to melted into a plastic flexible plastic or cardboard mold. Typically plastic gives you the highest quality type of card.

In order to integrate the chips in the plastic, the plastic has to be melted. Now this is a very critical stage in creating the card. If the plastic is too hot, the wiring from the chip to the contacts may fail. If the plastic stays too cold, the chip will separate from the plastic when exposed to mechanical stress due to bending of the card. This results in major quality differences and offcours in major price differences. There's no need to discuss the quality of a low priced card...
 

Perfect example of a chip that is not well melted onto the card because of a very bad production process.

Could you imagine what would happen to your electronics if the chip would come loose from the plastic? Remember that it only takes a the tiniest of short-circuit to seriously damage your equipment!
 

Here we see a card that is made out of cheapo-plastic. It's hard to see, but the whole card has suffered from the heat of the aparatus that it was used in. You will see that the chip is missing, obviously due to low-heat plastic integration (probably the plastic could not be heated more, obviously this type of plastic behave irradical to heat!)

Another very import issue when producing a card, concerns the contacts themselves. For proper conduction, ALL creditcard type of cards have a thin layer of gold coating the contacts and preventing them from oxidation. Usually the data-stream from your equipment to your card is quite fast, therefore optimal contacting is essential.

If the goldlayer is too thin or of bad composition (pure gold is too soft), it will erode fast, exposing the copper layer underneath. The copper will erode and your card will start to behave irradical.

Example of a corroded chip, due to a thin or bad composition goldlayer.

We have chosen for the American supplier 'Alpha Electronics' to provide all our creditcard sized smartcards. In the old days a label 'Goldcard' would be sufficient to know you have a brand-name card, but since the price difference between 'bad' and 'good' cards is quite substantial, you will find labels on nearly all cards (white or no label cards are a big no-no for shure! No matter what they cost, they're not worth the money!). Alpha cards you may recognize by the greek letter 'Alpha' integrated on the high-quality chip:
 

The "Alpha" symbol on all of our creditcard sized smart-cards! - Goldcards - Funcard SMART - Piccard2 SMART

When using PCB-type of cards, the green boards you may find on our pricelist page, the problem of contacting is a little less important. All exposed copperways are 'sealed' by a layer of soldering-thin. This layer is thicker than any goldlayer you may find on any card, but it's softer and may erode after a couple of years. If this may be the case and you dont want to replace your card, all you have to do is use a soldering iron an apply a fresh layer of thin and it will last you another 10 or so years!

First thing you will have to know when selecting a programmer, is determine what type of cárd you will be using. If you think it convenient for you to program just a PIC and EEPROM component, you will be very happy with a 'simpel' component programmer (such as the JDM) and a clasic piccard containing components stuck in sockets. If you feel like eploring other cards, now or in the future, you may want to choose f.i. a MasterA programmer. If you goal is to just program a piccard or simular on a regular base, the Goldprogrammer will be the programmer for you.

For some special applications, special programmers are required, such as the Phoenix programmer or the Atmel programmer. With the introduction of the MasterA programmer you will find these and some other very popular programmers all fitted into one little blackbox. Selecting a programmer is easilly done by means of a little button. The selected programming mode is shown on the display on the programmer. We still carry the Phoenix and Atmel programmer, but demand has slowen significantly because of the price-quality ratio of the MasterA programmer.

All our programmers have been selected on the most modern programming techniques: we disencourage the use of programmers using jumpers or mechanical switches (such as found on the phoenix programmer and many 'other' programmers). Such installation methods are really outdated  and very inconvenient, you are most likely to forget their function after not using your programmer for a couple of days, so you will have to have your manual real close to your programmer.

Programmers we do NOT sell (and the reason why):
Programmers are beeing manufactured in many countries these days. For warranty reasons we have decided to carry only made-in-holland programmers. Appart from that, we selected on how user-friendly a programmer is. We think anyone should be able to use a programmer and we think that programmers using all sorts of jumpers (tiny pieces of plastic containing copper contacts that you have to slide over 2 copper pins on the pcb of the programmer)  and switched are not of-this-time. Programmers that use these technique may be a bit cheaper, but that does not weigh the agony of operating the programmer!

Multiprog (XL) programmers
Manufactured in Germany, these programmers are quite excellent! They have a lucious LCD display, giving you all sorts of information about what your programmer is doing and what is beeing programmed. It looks splendid, but as we think quality and price ratio should not be out of the ordinary, this programmer goes bye-bye. The price is extremely high!

MasterCRD(1 or 2)
Another German programmer, that is resembles our Mastera Multiprogrammer. At first glance that is. These programs have features that are very popular with german smartcards, but are not really interesting for most other countries. They lack a GSM smartcard option. The price is about the same as our Mastera Multiprogrammer and because of warranty issues we do not sell this programmer.

The FUNprogrammer
In short: too limited in functionality. They are only capable of programming Atmel type of cards and the most import is that these programmers make use of your parallel printer port instead of the commonly adopted RS232 communications port (mind you, a programmer is not a printer!). This means a mayor limitation in software that you can use with your programmer, so even if you have a card that should be programmable with your FUNprogrammer, if your software does not allow this card to be set, you will have to go and find your FUN somewhere else. Most important disadvantage is the fact that you will not be able to use the most popular card in europe: the goldcard.

Handle and Jumper based programmers
Many programmers are offered usually under different brand names but they all come with about the same functionality and usually can be identified by one HUGE flip-type of switch in the middle of the programmer and some jumpers covering the rest of the programmer. Using such a device is torture. We do not like programmers that have a constant need for a manual or usersguide (IF EVEN SUPPLIED WITH YOUR PROGRAMMER!!).

These programmers come by many names, such as DL-20, DL-20 PLUS, Super-DL-20, Chipdrive light and so on, and so on. We even have seen this type of programmer go by the name of 'Goldprogrammer', and this is plain trickery. A Goldprogrammer NEVER has got any switch or jumper! The reason why you will find many of these (cheap) programmers is that you can find the schematics of such programmers for free on the internet. A lot of people trying to score a fast buck build such a programmer and sell it under their own given name. Needless to say that if you're looking for any support on the internet you will NOT be helped, for manufacturer one may have choosen to place it's jumpers or switches completely different thatn manufacturer 2...

We do NOT sell any of these programmers either!

Programmers we DO sell:
All programmers we sell are guaranteed easy to use and come with all the (legal!) software and attributes you need to succesfully use your programmer. We provide a step-by-step guide in English and Dutch, and usually after you have programmed your first couple of cards, you will forget about the manuals because of the ease of use of our programmers.

To go short, we recomend 4 type of programmers to anyone who want to start programming cards as well as those who know what they're talking about. They are all capable of at least using the most popular type of card-configuration (containing a PIC 16f84 and an EEPROM 24c16). Differences you may find in the type of other cards your programmer is capable of programming, the ease-of-use and offcourse pricing.

1. The JDM programmer - Cheap!

The JDM programmer is basically able of programming stand-allone devices, such as those found on your piccard (the PIC and EEPROM). It is necessary to remove the components from your card and stick them into your JDM programmer individually and thus programming them. This means a little more work and some stress for the components, so work acurately!

With the introduction of the Piccard2-type of cards, this programmer has gained a lot more interest again, for it's very well capable of some of these types of cards. The big advantage is, that the combination of this programmer with a card is the cheapest you will find!

2. The Goldprogrammer - Childsplay!

The goldprogrammer is capable of programming all available smartcards, containing a PIC and EEPROM (piccards, piccard golds, goldcards). Simply fire up the program included and introduce your card. Than select the files you want to be programmed and press 'Program'. Your card will be readin in about 20 seconds!! An amazing programmer, with brilljantly easy operations. Anyone can work with this programmer.

We recommend this programmer to anyone who wants to program a piccard (or compatible) on a regular base with the greatest ease. A success everytime!!

Note: the Goldprogrammer was replaced by the Goldprogrammer 2.0 SMD. This programmer has the same functions as the 'clasic' one, but comes in an attractive box and is much smaller. The software and functions remain the same!

3. De Master A programmer - Heavyweight champion!

It's not only the most expensive programmer in the line, but by far the most extensive in capabilities. It's capable of programming cards containing a PIC16f84 and an EEPROM 24c16, but it works splendidly for cards with an ATMEL processor (such as the Jupiter, Jupiter II and FUNcards). You can modify your exisiting 'original' cards. Allong with the bundled software you will find a program to modify your GSM simcard, f.i. your phonebook, sms-messages, network management information and all. Just select the mode on your programmer that the software asks you to, and you're off...

The MasterA has NO jumpers, selecting one of the 7(!) programming modes is achieved by means of a small switch. The mode is shown on the build-in display. The latest version of the (on the cdrom enclosed) software makes programming of any pic or atmel (including jupiter and FUNcards) easy as childsplay. Our in-house written (english) manual gives you an easy step-by-step programming guide.

Besides full-programming of cards, the MasterA is capable of emulating various 'clasic' programmers and programming modes, such as 'mouse 3.5 and 6mhz)', 'phoenix' mode, and 'ludipipo' interface mode. These modes are well recognized by dozens of freely downloadable applications on the internet.

Most high-end programmers (such as the 2001XL or the MasterCRD) are far more expensive and offer you less programming power!

All the programmer you will ever need!

A build-in GSM-telephone card mode gives you access to the data on your SIMcard in your mobile phone and even to some phonecards.

We recommend this programmer to people who are anxious to program a smartcard (both pic or atmel based), but would like to explore the wonderfull world of smartcard programming in the near future as well, without the compromise of beeing limited by their initial choice of programmer.

(NB: the core systemsoftware of the MasterA programmer can be upgraded in the future, so your MasterA programmer is allways 'up to date'!!)

NOTE: Because of manufacturing reasons the Mastera was discontinued. The Mastera2 has taken over the Mastera sales, giving you a lot more, for only a little more!

4. The Mastera II - For those who simply want it ALL!

All the functions you will find in the Mastera, are included in the Mastera II. However, it comes with the following new, extra functions:

- Built-in Goldprogrammer 2.0 SMD
The specifications are the same as programmer '2'. Just plug it in, dont touch a button and your programmer will work exactly the same as the Childs-play-easy-programmer 'Goldprogrammer'. Programming is a matter of  'click and go'.

- Built in stand-alone PIC 16f84/EEPROM 24c16 cloning/copying
This function embodies the dream of those who want to create backups of their existing PIC 16F84/25c16 EEPROM cards (goldcards, piccards, piccard gold) without the need for a personal computer! Simply insert a (non-protected) piccard or goldcard, press the button and wait... The Mastera II will copy your entire card into it's memory. Next, introduce all the new, empty cards you desire and create a normal (or protected!) copy of your 'original'.

The copied data from your card remains in the programmer, even is the power is removed from your Mastera II !!

The Mastera2 programmer is THE programmer for those who:
- have a Goldprogrammer but want to program more types of cards
- have a need to copy substantial (5+) quantities of the same goldcard
- just want to have the most extensive programmer you will find on the market today