I found an old smart card test card with PIC16C84 and a memory chip.
Depending on the software put to PIC it could have maybe emulated telephone booth calling card, SIM card, satellite TV smartcard, cable TV smartcard or something else.
That’s a fascinating find! The PIC16C84 and memory chip combo suggests a versatile platform for emulating various smart card applications, from telecom to pay-TV systems.
Nice teardown — the PIC16C84 was a popular choice for smart card experimentation in the late ’90s because of its EEPROM and simple ISP programming. Curious whether the memory chip on yours is an I2C EEPROM like a 24C16, since that was the typical pairing for ISO 7816 card emulators of that era.
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3 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2024/01/14/telephone-cards-hacking-history/
that's not my neighbor says:
That’s a fascinating find! The PIC16C84 and memory chip combo suggests a versatile platform for emulating various smart card applications, from telecom to pay-TV systems.
brenna says:
Nice teardown — the PIC16C84 was a popular choice for smart card experimentation in the late ’90s because of its EEPROM and simple ISP programming. Curious whether the memory chip on yours is an I2C EEPROM like a 24C16, since that was the typical pairing for ISO 7816 card emulators of that era.