Re: Interfacing to parallel port dongle via USB adapter

Paul Urbanus wrote

If you can reverse engineer your hardware key (and you are a legitimate >owner of the software), then maybe you could write a kernel level driver >that would emulate the parallel port. I'm a hardware guy and I don't >know diddly about writing kernel level drivers - so this last suggestion >may not be realistic. I have done some looking at dongle communication, >and they much more sophisticated than the old Xilinx days of the 'AA', >'AB', and 'AC' hardware keys, which were easy to duplicate (only >requiring some CMOS counters and gates).

That reminds me...

In the 1990s I paid some 5 digits for Xilinx software, for some specific consultancy projects I used to do then. One of the dongles (two of them) failed but they would not replace it. So I found some Russian who cracked it. I ended up with cracked Viewlogic 4 (Xilinx version) and XACT 6.something. All undongled! Last time I used it was

1996 but it would still run today. The only problem was Viewlogic which required an 8514-emulating video card to do 1024x768; I still have the mach32 video card which did that...

This kind of issue is why I still use Protel PCB 2.8 - I have the dongle but I picked up a patch in 1995. Runs on my latest PC fine.

I also have a box full of Autocad dongles from the 1980s...

Generally, one can patch the program to avoid the dongle check and this is the easiest way.

Unfortunately, this is not a legal option. When you have dozens of licences to handle, it makes it a little more difficult.

Presently for Autocad, (and other cad offerings) we have a licence server that dishes out licences to users as they run the software up.

Short of upgrading our servers, (before we test it, and transfer everything over first) that's going to continue to work.

Running hacked versions concurrently with documented legal paid licences doesn't cut it, it's still technically piracy, and we simply can't afford to wear the fines if it came to that.

The legals are much more grey when you are running software where the vendor doesn't actually exist anymore (so there's no-one to chase you), but all of that is upgraded as we go along anyway, so is still a moot point.