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My father has a very similar problem. He's using a CAD software which cost a couple thousand bucks decades ago (I don't know how old exactly it is, but I think

by m3adow 10y ago

My father has a very similar problem. He's using a CAD software which cost a couple thousand bucks decades ago (I don't know how old exactly it is, but I think mid 80s). It's using a LPT-dongle. LPT ports are hard to find nowadays, but all of the USB to LPT adapters I tested didn't work with this dongle. For his PC I settled with a PCIe LPT extension card, but now he got himself a Laptop and I'm back to field one.

c3833174 10y ago
Find an older laptop? It's not like DOS software is going to do anything with more than one core.
datenwolf 10y ago
These old dongles are a joke. The Sentinel Rainbow parallel port dongle for example is merely a "secure" key store that is unlocked using a key with a whooping length of 16 bits and it uses the "ultra secure" XOR encryption algorithm. The advertised code encryption essentially boils down to having parts of the binary being XOR-ed with some key and to decrypt it, that part of the program would be sent to the dongle and the decrypted text sent back and the program image in memory modified. To make things more difficult the same memory region would be re-used for different texts (who needs re-entrancy anyway). Long story short: This thing does XOR and all caveats of XOR apply. Like XOR-ing the ciphertext with the plaintext will yield the key. So cracking these things boils down to extracting the key and either emulating the dongle or decrypting the "protected" parts of the program and placing them in the binary in the clear. I'd be surprised if your fathers program used something more sophisticated than that.
syntaxing 10y ago
I had this exact problem when I was trying to connect my 3020 CNC to my computer. Most of these LPT to USB dongles was only designed for using it for LPT rather than as a parallel port. This pretty much screws up all the signal timing or analogue reading which a lot of old school dongle used to use. I'm pretty sure you can use something like this: https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Serial-Cards-Adapters/1s1p-USB-Serial-Parallel-Adapter-Cable~ICUSB2321284 https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Serial-Cards-Adapter... Though I cannot vouch for this since I ended up ripping my control system out and replacing it with something modern. You should talk with a startech representative to make sure before you buy.
xaqfox 10y ago
A docking station, if available, might solve the laptop issue (HP docking stations have one and it works for the Sentinel Parallel dongles).

by m3adow 10y ago

c3833174 10y ago

Find an older laptop? It's not like DOS software is going to do anything with more than one core.

datenwolf 10y ago

These old dongles are a joke. The Sentinel Rainbow parallel port dongle for example is merely a "secure" key store that is unlocked using a key with a whooping length of 16 bits and it uses the "ultra secure" XOR encryption algorithm. The advertised code encryption essentially boils down to having parts of the binary being XOR-ed with some key and to decrypt it, that part of the program would be sent to the dongle and the decrypted text sent back and the program image in memory modified. To make things more difficult the same memory region would be re-used for different texts (who needs re-entrancy anyway). Long story short: This thing does XOR and all caveats of XOR apply. Like XOR-ing the ciphertext with the plaintext will yield the key. So cracking these things boils down to extracting the key and either emulating the dongle or decrypting the "protected" parts of the program and placing them in the binary in the clear. I'd be surprised if your fathers program used something more sophisticated than that.

syntaxing 10y ago

I had this exact problem when I was trying to connect my 3020 CNC to my computer. Most of these LPT to USB dongles was only designed for using it for LPT rather than as a parallel port. This pretty much screws up all the signal timing or analogue reading which a lot of old school dongle used to use. I'm pretty sure you can use something like this: https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Serial-Cards-Adapters/1s1p-USB-Serial-Parallel-Adapter-Cable~ICUSB2321284 https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Serial-Cards-Adapter... Though I cannot vouch for this since I ended up ripping my control system out and replacing it with something modern. You should talk with a startech representative to make sure before you buy.

xaqfox 10y ago

A docking station, if available, might solve the laptop issue (HP docking stations have one and it works for the Sentinel Parallel dongles).