SDIO Now!

[Guest Swampie]

At work, we do lots of work with smartcards (like your credit cards with chips). Previously for some tasks we've used iPAQs like the h3660/h5550 with a PCMCIA jacket + a PCMCIA smartcard reader and this has worked fine, however none of HP's current devices support their PCMCIA jackets, so we're a bit stuck with what to do for getting smart card readers to work with Pocket PC devices.

We found some SDIO smartcard readers online and ordered 2. Our h5550 has SDIO and the advert claimed "compatible with Windows Mobile OS", "Works with any Windows Mobile device with SDIO expansion slot".

However, when it came, we got no drivers - just the devices. Fine I thought - tried inserting the SDIO connector, nothing appeared on the screen. Tried running an app which communicates via PS/SC (the standard smartcard API) and it can't find any readers.

Searched online about the reader and found it was sold elsewhere, and another place said the driving device must have "SDIO Now!" installed.

After searching around, I've found what "SDIO Now!" appears to be - it's a way of not requiring drivers etc for classes of devices. Hence no drivers supplied.

However, I'm unsure whether the h5550 has SDIO Now! (it appears to be an OEM/manufacturer licensed software - not available to 3rd parties). HP don't explicitly say, but do mention that they support it and will add it/drivers as/when necessary (seeing as this has no software updates from HP since 2004, I'm not very hopeful!). However, going to a Socket site (a manufacturer who uses SDIO Now! in their cards), they have a help file listing which devices support SDIO and SDIONow! Link here: http://www.socketcom.com/faq/faq.asp?ID=155

They seem to say that the h5550 "include both an SDIO slot and SDIO Now! software". I have the latest ROM and firmware updates on the device BTW.

So, can anyone advise a way of confirming if SDIO Now! is present on my device (registry entries, files etc). Also, can anyone confirm what might happen when a suitable SDIO Now! device is connected into a PDA runningSDIO Now!? Should I see anything pop up on the screen about installing stuff?

Many thanks

David