Mac OS 9 Lives
Mac OS 9 Discussion => Hardware => Topic started by: d97 on October 12, 2020, 12:28:55 PM
-
This dongle came attached to a Beige G3 that I picked up the other day. I suspect that it is some sort of copy protection for a piece of graphics software because the HD had a ton of that sort of software on it. I did a little google work but came up empty.
Does anybody recognize it?
D.
-
if might be for embroidery software for os9.
maybe not.
Any indications in the extensions if the HD is still intact?
-
Good point - I wasn't able to boot of the hd (there is an issue with the G3 itself that I am still diagnosing) and only know what's on the hd because I pulled it and put it in a firewire case. The extensions folder might give me a clue or two.
-
i think its just a general purpose software dongle key, not specific to any piece of software. like vectrex said best bet is seeing whats actually installed on the drive
-
Can you show pictures how the plugs/pins etc look like?
-
Unless anybody can identify it visually, I think it will remain a mystery. I popped the HD back into the firewire enclosure and instead of showing me the contents, it tells me that it needs to be formatted. I tried it in a bunch of machines with the same result. I'll experiment a little more but I suspect that I'm at the end of the line that way.
I can't believe that I didn't mention that the dongle was attached to the adb keyboard. So - it's an adb. I don't have a lot of experience with graphics but, given what was on the machine when I could access the HD, I'm pretty sure it is software protection for a piece of graphics software. Did Quark ever have an adb dongle?
D.
-
Waves plugs had a ADB dongle
Logic too
-
on the graphics side, quark had an adb dongle, and one more app... i think electric image or so.
oh, my adobe after effects 3 production bundle also had a dongle, but it was the same one logic used, not the weird thing on the picture.
-
Try one of these ADB tools. Maybe they will show what kind of device it is
-
Those are interesting tools - thanks for posting them!
Unfortunately, the two tools that try to identify the dongle came up empty. They both "saw" it but couldn't identify it.
D.
-
Take a look here, maybe you'll find some useful info:
http://web.archive.org/web/19991127133139/http://www.wco.com/~micuan/dongles.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/19991127133139/http://www.wco.com/~micuan/dongles.htm)
-
I have the exact same dongle. If I remember correctly it was necessary for early versions of PowerRIP - a PostScript RIP for Epson and Canon inkjet printers.
I used this software on a LC475 with an ethernet-card. That machine provided the RIP service for the whole network and fed the print data to two Epson Stylus XL A3+ printers. This was a very reliable an inexpensive setup for PostScript color prints and I used it every day - 25 years ago...
Later versions of PowerRIP used a internet connection to unlock the software. the dongle was no longer needed.
-
Great! Thanks for identifying it - I knew it had to have something to do with graphics production.
D.