Starkeeper,
I'll try to explain as I know, others please feel free to step in and orrect me if I am wrong.
As you said, a dongle (despite sounding a little naughty
) is a device protecting unathorized use of computer programs.
It is a hardware device, containing some sort of serial number or code or something in a chip that is embedded in the device. You plug it to an I/O (input/output) port of a computer. It can be a parallel dongle, a serial dongle, or a USB dongle, reffering to the connection used.
When you try to run a program, it has a special code that scans for the dongle, communicates with it and finally concludes that a legit dongle is present so the program can run freely. If the dongle is not found, the program simply refuses to work.
Steinberg has a usb dongle which is probably a special USB key, that can store multiple licences targeted to different programs and sometimes allow for transferring the license from one dongle to another, so you can sell the program and the license that comes with it.
Sometimes dongles were the cause of most of the nightmares of users, back in the old days it was not uncommon to see a line of 10 dongles one plugged to the other and then to the parallel port, forming a horizontal thing that protruded for a foot or so from the back of the PC. Imagine dongle A wanting to be always the first in line, while dongle ABC would only work if it was before dongle 5 and after dongle 3 and only if the program it protected was launched first, and so on.
That is it, some things you wanted to know about dongles and some things you could'nt care less for.
Theodore