USB dongles are used a lot for Building Management System PC’s running client front ends/GUI’s as well. When I started they were serial based dongles but since went to USB. Only problem with USB is people tend to see one sticking out the back of a PC and thing and think “oh, hello-free USB key”.

I was at the Avionics Maintenance Conference in Atlanta all week and they had a great talk about obsolescence during the end of the session yesturday. Boeing and Airbus both presented. Rob Picken also gave a great talk about how obsolescence impacts people. We took a group of folks through our avionics shops today.…

Conditional Access - basically a “dongle” card that responds to a security challenge with an appropriate response. Lots of different systems in place (Satellite and Cable Boxes use modern versions of these), but the basic idea is that it can respond with an appropriate pseudo-random code value, or even a set of…

This doesn’t surprise me at all. I work at an avionics company and we support stuff that was designed 30+ years ago (if it’s still flying we’re still supporting it, even if we haven’t built it for years.) We’ve got a lab for our first CRT-based display/integrated avionics system that runs on an Apple IIe. Our IT…