ac power to a form useful for transmission to the chip card 50 however the reader power supply 128 may be a transformer or a direct connection attached to a dc power source such as a cigarette lighter in an automobile power supplies 128 for both ac and dc power are standard and commercially available the first data connector 112 is adapted to connect to the data interface 58 on the chip card 50 and transfer data between the reader 100 and the chip card 50 in one embodiment the first data connector 112 is electrically connected to a second data connector 116 which in turn connects to an external device 120 such as a computer a data storage device or a communications network in this embodiment the reader 100 acts as a pass through device wherein data is transferred between the external device 120 and the chip card 50 at the control of the external device 120 or the chip card 50 the reader 100 acting primarily as an adapter for receiving the chip card 50 in another embodiment the reader 100 may also include an information handling unit not shown capable of directing the transfer of data to and from the reader 100 the information handling unit may also be capable of storing data for transfer to or from the chip card 50 in this embodiment the reader 100 may be used as a standalone device for transferring data to and from the chip card 50 the information handling unit preferably includes or is connected to one or more memory chips or other memory storage structures such as srams drams or eeproms or a disk drive the information handling unit.