10 Apr
2001
10 Apr
'01
6:17 a.m.
On Mon, 9 Apr 2001 18:54:50 -0700 Mike Ford
<mikeford(a)socal.rr.com> wrote:
BTW While talking to someone at the Santee swapmeet,
he told me the origine
of the word dongle is from the person who invented the short adapter
cables, Don Gall. Fact or fiction?
Fiction. Advertising, in fact. I remember an advert for a
certain brand of dongle in .EXE magazine in the 1980s,
where this myth was presented. "Don Gall" was a programmer
whose work was ripped-off and who as inspired to invent
hardware copy-protection and (according to the ad) name it
after himself. If I ever see it again, I'll post the full
info.
And a nit-pick: to me, "dongle" is a word describing a
copy-protection device and "dangler" is a word for the
short, easily-lost cable that one often finds adapting
a PCMCIA card to a full-size connector.
I also use "dangler" to refer to the thing on the back of a
Sun Sparc 20 that adapts the non-standard AUI/audio
connector to a proper AUI and some jack sockets. Equally,
it could be the thing that breaks out the Sun's dual serial
ports into two 25-pin "D" connectors. Or the thing that
connects an IPX's audio port micro-DIN to two jack sockets.
--
John Honniball
Email: John.Honniball(a)uwe.ac.uk
University of the West of England