Dongle Berry

dongle (NOUN)

"A dongle (pronounced DONG-uhl) is a mechanism for ensuring that only authorized users can copy or use specific software applications, especially very expensive programs. Common mechanisms include a hardware key that plugs into a parallel or serial port on a computer and that a software application accesses for verification before continuing to run; special key diskettes accessed in a similar manner; and registration numbers that are loaded into some form of ROM (read-only memory) at the factory or during system setup.

If more than one application requires a dongle, multiple dongles can be daisy-chained together from the same port. Dongles are not in frequent use partly because enterprises don't like to have a serial or parallel port preempted for this use. "

back in the 1980's when we had a Commodore 64 (that's a type of computer, for you younger folks... in it's day, it was FAR superior to the Apple products, but like the Betamax, it failed to capture the market's attention) ANYWAY... several of the programs that we had required dongles; physical "passwords" to keep pirates from copying and using software. My dad created a cottage industry building dongles to accompany the software that his pirate buddies copied. Yar. Resistors, transistors, diodes, all soldered to a hand-etched circuit board and dipped in resin... i still have some of them...

Back then, i used to think that it would be cool if say, soldiers, had dongles instead of dogtags for their personal information. the dongles would contain vital health info as well as name rank and serial number...

we now have the Flash Drive that plugs into a USB port (see my earlier post about the MacGyver-esque tool). I have seen flash drives that hold a couple gigabytes (the computer i just got rid of held all of 8GB and for the most part it served me fairly well (the issue was speed, not so much size...)

they are making flash drives as keychains, pens, and yes even pocket knives.

i didn't build it, but i did dream it up over twenty years ago. i guess someone else did, too...