Macchiato

This site provides some information about writing programs for Smart Cards and card terminals. A small overview about Card-Side Application Programming Interfaces like Java Card and MULTOS will be given; Reader-Side Application Programming Interfaces like OpenCard or Visa Open Platform. Programming a smart card include some knowledge about the security of smart cards.

Java Card specification enable Java technology to run on smart cards and other devices with limited memory. Multiple applications can run on a single card. In the Java programming language, the inheritent design around small, downloadable code elements makes it easy so securely run multiple applications on a single card. The object-oriented methodology of the Java Card technology provides flexibility in programming smart cards. Implementations of the Java Card are available from the following companies.

The language Java^TM, was developed and implemented by a small group of programmers at Sun Microsystems in California under the direction of James Gosling. The start goes back on the year 1990, the group operated on a project with the name Green, which had the target a universal programming language for controlling electronics of household appliances (further information).

Where does the name Macchito comes from and how it is related to this site ? First of all I drink Macchiato in Italy and in various Italian Restaurants and Bars. Second, I think the name fits well to a site focusing on the smallest virtual machine for Java. There are other sites named after different kind of coffee (Cafe au Lait, Kaffee und Kuchen, Caffeine Connection).