Dongle

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

We have a new cat. He's about 8 inches long, a walking fluffball, and quite loud.

We named him Dongle.

For those of you not in the know, a "dongle" is a DVI-VGA adaptor, commonly shipped with flat panel monitors. 30% of people who think their monitor is broken are people who stuck their flat panel monitor in the wrong video port after seeing the DVI port on their video card and scratching their heads for 10 minutes, then pulling out the BLACK COVER CAP on their integrated video port and plugging their monitor in.

Pictures to come. Of the cat, not the adaptor.

Comments

[c0c0c0.livejournal.com]

Your deffinition is only partly correct. A dongle is an adaptor in general. Not just for monitors. It can be a device that goes between a laptop and a network adaptor and also is used for security measures as well.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=dongle&r=67

[mellay.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE CORRECT SIR! but, at our support site (salem and i work for the same support center) we only support desktop...so he may/may not have known the laptop use as well.

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

That, and Dongle rolls off the tongue much easier than "DVI-VGA Flat Panel Monitor Adaptor"

[c0c0c0.livejournal.com]

Dongles galore! (http://images.google.com/images?q=dongle&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en)

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

Good god that's more dongles than you can dangle a dingle at O_o

[nix.livejournal.com]

howabout the cat chewing on the real thing?

[miguelitof.livejournal.com]

There are many more uses of the word "dongle" than just the DVI adaptor. I first remember hearing Dongle used to describe a copy protection device sent with some software packages. To use the software, you had to attache the dongle to the serial or parallel port of the computer you were using. If the dongle wasn't attached, the software wouldn't work.

Once printers started getting more sophisticated (bi-directional, ECP), dongles really fell out of favor, because they would disrupt the bi-di communication.

According to dictionary.com, a Dongle is:

dongle
<hardware> /dong'gl/ (From "dangle" - because it dangles off
the computer?)

1. <security> A security or copy protection device for
commercial microcomputer programs that must be connected to
an I/O port of the computer while the program is run.
Programs that use a dongle query the port at start-up and at
programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not
respond with the expected validation code.

One common form consisted of a serialised EPROM and some
drivers in a D-25 connector shell.

Dongles attempt to combat software theft by ensuring that,
while users can still make copies of the program (e.g. for
backup), they must buy one dongle for each simultaneous use
of the program.

The idea was clever, but initially unpopular with users who
disliked tying up a port this way. By 1993 almost all dongles
passed data through transparently while monitoring for their
particular magic codes (and combinations of status lines)
with minimal if any interference with devices further down the
line. This innovation was necessary to allow daisy-chained
dongles for multiple pieces of software.

In 1998, dongles and other copy protection systems are fairly
uncommon for Microsoft Windows software but one engineer in
a print and CADD bureau reports that their Macintosh
computers typically run seven dongles: After Effects, Electric
Image, two for Media 100, Ultimatte, Elastic Reality and CADD.
These dongles are made for the Mac's daisy-chainable ADB
port.

The term is used, by extension, for any physical electronic
key or transferable ID required for a program to function.
Common variations on this theme have used the parallel port
or even the joystick port or a dongle-disk.

An early 1992 advertisment from Rainbow Technologies (a
manufacturer of dongles) claimed that the word derived from
"Don Gall", the alleged inventor of the device. The company's
receptionist however said that the story was a myth invented
for the ad.
[Jargon File]
(1998-12-13)

2. A small adaptor cable that connects, e.g. a PCMCIA
modem to a telephone socket or a PCMCIA network card to an
RJ45 network cable.

(2002-09-29)

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

JESUS CHRIST PEOPLE

ok I stand corrected. What I should have said is, _in our jobs(meaning melly and myself), what we deal with primarily is the dvi-vga_ blah blah pick up where i left off.

I crossposted this to my own journal, and got at least two replies like this. how sad is that?