Well, I suspect the Rainbow has been considered and doesn't meet your
goals.  They seem to be one of the foremost in the business.

Echoing Rob, FTDI ( http://www.ftdichip.com ) includes dongle
functionality in their latest USB chips.  They have code examples on
how to use them.  I haven't spent much time looking into them deeply
though, so it may be that it's just a serial number with no
authentication, or it may be more secure.

Either way, it would be an easy and cheap way of doing it.

Alternately, use a PIC and develop the system yourself.  Then sell it
online to others in your position.

-Adam

On 1/16/07, Robert Young <rwyoung@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu
> > [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of James Newtons Massmind
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 1:26 PM
> > To: 'Microcontroller discussion list - Public.'
> > Subject: [BUY] USB Dongles
> >
> >
> > My main client is transitioning from a hardware to a software
> > based system (my fault <grin>). He is not at all comfortable
> > with standard software licensing (and in this specific case,
> > I can see why) and so wants to include a hardware locking key
> > to control the use of the software. His clients won't mind
> > since they are used to the current hardware anyway. Other
> > comments regarding how evil dongles are should be tagged [OT], please.
> >
> > The problem is that I can't seem to find any company that
> > offers them in medium small quantities ( low hundreds ), for
> > reasonable prices ( e.g. < $20 each ) and releases source
> > code samples for how to connect to them. I had assumed there
> > would be a DLL you include in your installation and you would
> > call if from your application, but everything seems to be
> > much more complex and secretive. We aren't trying to stop
> > hackers here, just keep the users honest.
> >
> > Has anyone had any good experiences with this? I'd sure
> > appreciate a referral.
>
> James,
>
> As I understand it, the FT232RL and FT245RL parts from FTDI can be used
> to create such dongles.  I'm remembering this from a blurb I saw on
> their web page.  May have been advertising hype, may have been an
> application note.  Probably worth a quick look at www.ftdichip.com.
>
> Another that comes to mind is Griffin Technologies.  Might also be worth
> contacting them.  www.griftech.com.
>
> Rob
>
> --
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