Hardware emulation

[Jonathan]

Hi,<br><br>I have just started working on a new app written by an 3rd party supplier.&nbsp;&nbsp;It has a VB 6 front end on a SQL server back end.&nbsp;&nbsp;The front end runs on dedicated NT Workstation boxes which are configured to auto login on startup and will only run our app.&nbsp;&nbsp;The login to the database is always done using the NT login.&nbsp;&nbsp;However, the users are identified to the system using smart cards.&nbsp;&nbsp;Each of the NT boxes has a card reader on it.<br><br>The card reader comes with all drivers and an API.&nbsp;&nbsp;The people who wrote the app built an ActiveX control for the card reader which basically consists of a timer, triggering events when people insert/remove cards.<br><br>The problem is, it is not possible to run the app on any system without a card reader.&nbsp;&nbsp;I would like to be able to write an app which will emulate the card reader, so we can do dev work on our own PCs (fitting card readers to them doesn't appear to be an option at present).&nbsp;&nbsp;Unfortunately, I have no idea how to go about this, having never written anything even remotely similar.<br><br>Can anybody give me any help/advice/suggestions/pointers?<br><br>Thanks<br><br>Jonathan <p> Jonathan<br><a href=mailto:j.w.george@virginnet.co.uk>j.w.george@virginnet.co.uk</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Working with: Visual Basic 6, Access 97, Visual Interdev 6, VBScript, Active Server Pages, SQL Server 6.5, Oracle 7

 

[chiph]

Jonathan -<br><br>You've got the specs on the API, right?&nbsp;&nbsp;Why not right an Active-X OCX that presents a user-interface that all it has on it is a button labeled &quot;Simulate Card Scan&quot;, and it raises the correct event.&nbsp;&nbsp;One that looks exactly like your vendors!<br><br>So if the CardVender.OCX raises an event called &quot;CardPresented&quot; that returns a card ID, you would write the same exact event in your control, only you would return the same card ID every time (i.e. a fake ID).&nbsp;&nbsp;Use the same control name and project name as them, to make it easier to load your finished program on your customer's machine.<br><br>Chip H.<br>