A dongle dingle

This will cost you less than £3, you can remove the sockets from the plug shell (by depressing the little tag) wrap them in tape and attach directly to the right pins on the 25-pin connector. Seal with Sugru.

Sorted

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 18/12/2017 13:59:26

Got to ask, how do you know which are the right pins for the Dongle to work?

Neil,

All of that is fine - but we're still waiting for Sam to confirm if it really is RS232 (pretty unlikely) or it is a parallel port dongle (which the vast majority were).

Dave

The ebay page has teh pin assignments:

Red wire： 5V
Black wire： GND
White wire： RXD
Green wire： TXD
Yellow wire： RTS
Blue wire： CTS

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CabledUp-USB-2-0-Male-to-25-Pin-DB25-Female-Parallel-Port-Printer-Adapter-Cable/172375784085

Worth a try but this converter doesn't have DTR, DCD, DSR or RI. The dongle won't work if any of them are needed.

Dave

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Mike

Yes, I was seriously suggesting that the specimen might have the shell on wrong.

There's another view on the linked page which suggests that someone has had it apart.

I'm on seasonal domestic duties at the moment, but will try to dig-out my old AutoCAD installation manual later.

MichaelG.

Don't be too shocked to find there were several different types of dongle in the jungle. In my experience parallel port dongles were most common because IBM PCs & clones were ubiquitous, but there were many RS232 types about as well. Some suppliers gave you a choice. I've even seen a few Ethernet and USB dongles.

IBM unhelpfully used DB25 rather than Centronics for parallel printing on their PCs. So Sam's dongle could be 25-pin RS232 or IBM parallel - difficult to tell apart at a glance.

Dave

Dave

AutoCad dongles were parallel ported until they went to software activated licenses, can't remember what release that was but I used from R9 to 2017.

In 35 years of playing with RS232 I haven't yet come across one application that used anything other than RXD,TXD,CTS and RTS. 9 out of 10 only use TXD and RXD.

N.

Hi, Although most PCs don't have a parallel port socket/plug on the rear face they still have a built in parallel port on the mother board. Check on boot up the bios settings and see if there is a parallel port setting. If so all that is needed is the socket with a flying lead (Amazon or E-bay for a couple of quid). Fix it to one of the expansion slots at the back and connect (see mother board details or google it)

Regards John

I still have a boxed version of Autocad 10, inc books floppy's and dongle, I purchased this in the mid to late 80's cost £2500 I seem to remember.

I also do remember the maths co processors of that era.......... 8087 then 80287, 30287, the the 486 came out with built in Co pro............

They seemed to run as fast as most windowz pc seem to now with all the bloatware bells and whistles they have......

Shaun

Yes, that's right. But a Dongle isn't a normal RS232 device.

For example one way of implementing a dongle is with some simple electronics that recognises a number sent asynchronously on the DSR line and responds by signalling back on RI to confirm 'dongle plugged in'. A mechanism like that allows ordinary RS232 comms to work normally whilst allowing the software to transparently check the dongle whenever it wants to. The variations are endless.

As a dongle might do it's stuff by breaking the rules, USB converters and 9-pin sockets don't always work.

Parallel dongles can pull the same sort of trick; if you know what you're doing at low-level any computer interface can be played in non-standard ways to implement a dongle.

Trouble is customers don't know how their particular dongle works. It might be OK, it might not. That's why it's always worth trying, and why success isn't guaranteed.

Dave

This.

You can get PCI cards for serial and parallel ports. I have tried both at work. One problem is that, for somewhat arcane reasons, nether will appear at the 'standard' I/O address ranges. Software that works through the operating system abstracted devices should, with suitable drivers, work fine. Parallel printers are alive and well for specialist applications. Software that that needs to access the device directly will likely fail. Dongles tend to fall into the latter category.

Ignore this, didn't look at the photo properly

Edited By Mark Dickinson on 18/12/2017 18:41:00

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Found the custom 'Installation Guide' for the Olivetti M24

Unfortunately; the only reference is: "The international version of AutoCAD requires the "Hardware Lock", a small box with an electrical connector at each end included with your AutoCAD manuals and diskettes. The international version of AutoCAD cannot execute without it properly attached to your computer. Follow the instructions that come with the Hardware Lock to install it."

Needless to say; that is the one item of documentation I am missing !!

MichaelG.

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Incidentally; we did have a look inside our dongle, but the circuit was fully potted in epoxy [and it is definitely not a simple cross-wiring job].

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 18/12/2017 19:13:29

You are not missing much. This was an era when computers were alien devices to many, hence very detailed instructions were provided. That vintage AutoCAD dongle was a pass-through parallel port device, hence the connector at each end. Physical installation was straightforward. It goes in the 25-pin parallel port. Only fits one way round. Printer cable (if any) goes in the other end. Tighten the screws. The rest is software.

That's what I thought, Alan

... But I promised to look, and felt obliged to report back.

MichaelG.

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Edit: I suppose I should inform 'retro-computing' that their exhibit is duff:

http://www.retro-computing.org/?page=item&id=289#mainphoto

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 18/12/2017 20:38:25

eMail sent to the Curators

... I will report back in due course.

MichaelG.

After hours of searching, here is my AutoCAD R14 Dongle (edited to remove serial numbers). It is a NetSENTINEL manufactured by Rainbow Technologies, supplied to my former employers in 1998 and passed to me when they changed CAD suppliers so that I could maintain their older drawings.

Although it has a parallel pass-through, only the computer end is labelled as such.

Brian

Edit: I could never get the software to run on Vista or later, and kept an old machine running Windows 2000 for AutoCAD until it was no longer needed.

Edited By Brian G on 18/12/2017 21:24:38