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enable dongle licence check under DOSbox

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First post, by oldCADguy

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I recently lost my venerable 486DX66 computer to a failed graphics card. I had kept the machine simply to run ProCAD version 8.0, a 1990s 2D CAD program that I particularly like.

On discovering DOSbox and installing it, I find I can get to the welcome screen but no further on account of a licence check (I think). The software validates itself with a dongle that was plugged in to the parallel port on the old PC. I have the dongle and have plugged it in to the parallel port of the (again rather old) WinXP machine on which I am running DOSbox.

Would I be right in thinking that the architecture and the workarounds involved in getting DOSbox to work mean that it is likely that the batch files that run to test the licence before starting the program just can't find the dongle? If so what should I be looking for (to circumvent) in the batch file that starts the program, listed as follows:-

Note: I have mounted c:\procad as my c: drive within DOSbox
and "tshell.exe" is definitely running when called upon to do so. I know this because when I run the batch file below, it always returns me to tshell - being the welcome page from which the CAD program is launched.

cls
echo off
cls
cd \procad\cad
gmouse 2
copy perr.sys curerr
mode co80
procad.exe >>curerr
echo on
echo off
if not exist errflag goto done
mode co80
type curerr
pause
copy curerr lasterr
:done
mode co80
cls
cd \procad
tshell

Thanks in advance
Ed

Reply 1 of 3, by Kippesoep

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That's a very weird batch file. At any rate, it's not the batch file that's doing the license check. That would be very easily circumventable. The check is most likely in procad.exe itself. AFAIK, DOSBox does not support access to the real parallel port. While there are some custom versions that enable printing, that is not nearly the same as accessing a dongle. Unless you manage to (have somebody) reverse engineer the dongle and build support into (another custom version of) DOSBox, you're out of luck.

My site: Ramblings on mostly tech stuff.

Reply 2 of 3, by Jorpho

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There would be very little point for the developers to include a dongle check if circumventing the check was as easy as editing a batch file, wouldn't you say?

The standard version of DOSBox does not allow for parallel port passthrough, period – it contains no facilities whatsoever for accessing anything plugged into a PC's parallel ports. For that, you will at least need the SVN Daum build, and you will probably need PortTalk as well. (The Megabuild used to be the way to go, but it is kind of out of date now.)

Beyond that, I suggest you consult the numerous other threads that have been posted here in the past on the subject of parallel port passthrough and parallel port dongles. Given that you are not using a USB-to-parallel port adapter (right?) you may be in luck. There is one particular patch that may allow you to dispense with the dongle entirely, depending on the chipset the dongle uses.

Last edited by Jorpho on 2013-06-13, 14:46. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 3 of 3, by oldCADguy

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Thank you both for that. It looks as though the search is going to take me longer than the time required to learn a different 2D CAD program.

Getting ProCAD going again is something I will have to save for a spare-time hobby just to see if it can be done. I would like to rescue the files created using the software. Some I exported to .DXF are not a problem. Others that remain in the native .PRT format will have to wait.

Many thanks for your help.

Ed

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