On Mon, 9 Apr 2001 18:54:50 -0700 Mike Ford
<mikeford_at_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_at_uwe.ac.uk
University of the West of England
Received on Tue Apr 10 2001 - 05:17:34 BST