A dongle dingle

Gentlemen,

After such an overwhelmingly wonderful and generous response, it is pertinent at this stage, for me to reconcile the issue.

Before I do, I thank everyone for contributing so much in such a short time. I must also apologise if calling the dongle/PC an RS232; that’s what I thought it was.

Despite the inconvenience of jumping between machines, the amount of use the CAD package would get from me, the very unhelpful response from the software company, the probability that the dongle was potted, and being rather long in the tooth myself, I’ve decided to abandon the idea.

Many thanks once again.

Seasons Greetings to everyone, and make plenty of lovely swarf in 2018.

Sam

I think dongles are not so popular with popular packages is because the hackers got round them. USB dongles still seem to be used on low volume software where hackers would not get any return.

Mike

a long time ago I found a photo of a parallel printer port dongle on line

it had 3 diodes , a capacitor and an IC

( not that I can find it now !!!)

  it will need plugging  into  a parallel printer port at 378 hex

depending on how early a dongle it was

it could of been a ROM powered by a few pins set High (5V)

with the data lines set to one ROM address

the resulting KEY data being sent to the printer ports status inputs

(with an ASIC or PIC chip the key data can be encrypted)

the dongle could of been like this to pass all lines through to a printer --

serial versions that plugged into the RS232 ports have been made

John

PS

seeing the ground pins 18 to 25 being connected together could distinguish the dongle from a RS232 serial version

Edited By john swift 1 on 19/12/2017 00:58:12

That's something to get your teeth into John S.

I'm so much in the dark here, I've changed my Avatar

I've just made an interesting discovery: **LINK**

https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/e5/chapter2_51.html

Would those who categorically asserted that the AutoCAD 'Hardware Lock' was always a parallel port device kindly join me in reading the opening statement on that page:

[quote]

With the introduction of AutoCAD release 2.1, all versions sold outside the United States and Canada were protected by the “hardware lock” or “WIDGET” (Walker's Inline Device Guaranteeing Elimination of Theft). This is a transparent RS-232 device which AutoCAD probes and requires to be present in order to run. When the introduction of this device went reasonably smoothly, Autodesk U.S. introduced it in the domestic market in release 2.5 in June of 1985.

[/quote]

Note: the author is John Walker, one-time President of Autodesk.

MichaelG.

The dongle might have been 'uncrackable', but the software it protected was not. I am embarrassed to admit now, but for a brief period some years ago, I derived a certain amount of satisfaction using a disassembler and a debugger to patch software so that it could operate dongle free. Two of my notable cracks were Autocad and P-Cad a PCB design package. After having a few cracks under the belt, knowing what to look for, I could typically crack a package in an evening.
In mitigation, other than checking that the software was still fully functional, I never personally used any of the packages that I cracked.
As a side benefit, my knowledge of the x86 CPU and the IBM PC architecture was considerably improved and stood me in good stead for some years.

Clive

They say that confession is good for the soul, Clive.

MichaelG.

The local Autocad distributor was quite p*ssed off when I showed him how the 'uncrackable' dongle was circumvented by a a patch that returned the correct answer to the log-on query. Being written in assembler code it was quick. The reason why it was written was that our provided (parallal/printer port) 'dongle' obstructed the rear of the workstation and crashed the program if the system was pushed against the wall.

We had a licenced version of Autocad but just wanted to show the muppet that his claim of 'uncrackable' was pure wishful thinking and bulls*it.

So to help out our mate Sam I searched and eventually found the code. It's on a 5.5 " floppy disc so I had to hook up a drive to an old DOS box, the file is called dd.exe (dongle defeat) and it was assembled to run under MS Dos 3.3.

* Danny M *

But still no suggestions of where to get a dingle dongle.

All I want is a dingle dongle to dangle on the Christmas Tree...

.

R.I.P. Chuck Berry !!

.

Danny,

Although we dragged to discussion towards AutoCAD .. Sam has not actually mentioned which software he is using, so dd.exe may not be relevant.

Personally, however, I am interested to see that you reference specifically the parallel/printer port.

... I must read more of John Walker's story [which I referenced yesterday]

MichaelG.

Re. Autocad, I sent SWMBO (version1) on a round-the-world trip back in the early 90s. In Hong Kong she picked up some locally available program CDs , with no knowledge of what they were. One turned out to be a 'de-dongled' Autocad, (legit version was circa £2k, I think). Foolishly thinking that I could make use of it, I bought my most expensive paperback - £55.00 - a user manual. Optimism over ability can only produce one outcome ... my most expensive throwaway ever!!

rgds

Bill

To be honest dongles were a pain in the ar5e neck. At one time I had three different parallel port dongles in my desk drawer, and none could be used via a pass-through, which meant pulling the PC out to change programs. It wasn't as if cracked versions of software weren't available, I am pretty sure I was the only person on one course using a licenced version of AutoCAD.

They aren't quite dead yet though, as the software for my vinyl cutter requires a USB dongle.

Brian

Our male dog wants one (or two) of these as he seems to have gained the impression that a 'dingle dongle' would be the dog's danglies ( since he has 'lost' his)
Sorry...
Happy Christmas everyone
DaveD