ADB to USB adapter ? (I'm stuck in my search.)

Question

ADB to USB adapter ? (I'm stuck in my search.)

Looking to connect an ADB QuarkXPress Passport dongle to either my dual bootable PPC MDD Dual G4 booted into straight, native Mac OS 9.2, or—even better—to my G5 Quad to run my ancient QuarkXPress Passport v 4.1 in the Classic environment.

The application is already installed properly, but it won't launch on the G5 Quad under Classic 9.2 because it "can't find a network hardware key" meaning it doesn't find the aforementioned Quark dongle. Since neither of those machines has an ADB port (my old beige G3/w/SonnetZIFG4upgrade Mini Tower does, but I'm looking to get rid of that bulky Mac), I need some sort of ADB-to-USB adapter.

I tried connecting the dongle to the front USB port on the G5 Quad through a Griffin iMate ADB-to-USB adapter I had lying around, and the application does not see the Quark dongle, which doesn't surprise me after reading the description of the iMate gadget in the Amazon link I've inserted in this paragraph, asi it seems it has some sort of audio amplification built in ( 😕 ).

I'm hoping one of the regulars here can point me towards an ADB-to-USB adapter that might work.

If there is no such animal, I would be grateful for that information so I can give up on the idea for good.

I wonder also whether the USB ports are even seen by the Classic environment on the G5, at which point I'd have to turn to the G4 booted straight into Mac OS 9.2 natively.

The reason I need that old version of QXP PP is that I created some multilingual documents in that application some 20 or 25 years ago that I can't open otherwise. Standard versions of QXP, even modern ones, cannot open files created by QXP Passport 3.x or 4.x.

Thanks in advance.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5), 2.66GHzQuad 2006,16GB RAM,1GB VRAM

Posted on Jul 21, 2013 8:32 AM

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Answer 1

rccharles

Level 6

12,969 points

Jul 21, 2013 9:22 AM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

I know for some applications that required a cd to be in the drive, you could make a disk image of the cd and mount the image on the desktop. The application would then run from the mounted image.

Might try such an approach.

Robert

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Answer 2

Jul 21, 2013 9:34 AM in response to rccharles

Well, that would have absolutely nothing to do with my issue at all. 😀

Thank you for your good intentions when chiming in, but a CD, DVD or disk image are not required and would not help in the least. What is required is for the application to see the dongle or it won't launch, period.

Incidentally, sometimes the word dongle is misused to refer to a flash memory stick or such; that is NOT a dongle, despite the frequent misuse of the term.

DICTIONARY definition:

don·gle

n.

A hardware device that serves as copy protection for certain software by rendering the software inoperable when the device is not plugged into a printer port.

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Answer 3

rccharles

Level 6

12,969 points

Jul 21, 2013 10:15 AM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

Well, I figured you might get creative and try to find out what data was on the dongle. Copy it to a file and place the file in a dmg image.

Matter of fact, if you can figure out how to read the data off of the dongle, you could use some type of unix konfu (spelling ) to simulate the dongle.

Anyway, it is best to ignore advice you do not wish to use.

Robert

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Answer 4

Jul 21, 2013 10:57 AM in response to rccharles

Er… and how do you figure I can read what's in a darned dongle that I cannot connect to my computers because it has ADB plugs on both ends? 😕

If the dongle were that easy to defeat, I assume Quark would have gone a different route.

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Answer 5

Jul 21, 2013 10:54 AM in response to rccharles

Remember, QuarkXP expects to find the hardware key ("dongle") connected to an ADB port on the Mac.

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Answer 6

Jul 21, 2013 11:02 AM in response to rccharles

These are the message boxes returned by QXP PP :

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

245,459 points

Jul 21, 2013 11:23 AM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

As I recall from wayback, nobody got it to work. 😟

No idea if you could create some virtual port & maybe use something like this to tie them together or not...

http://members.iinet.net.au/~mgl/MartysPlace/MultiCom.html

Do you have an ADB Mouse or KB to test eith that iMate?

Different dongle, but what drivers do you have installed for it?

http://lists.apple.com/archives/colorsync-users/2003/Jul/msg00366.html

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Answer 8

Jeff

Level 6

12,202 points

Jul 21, 2013 11:52 AM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

There was another manufacturer that made such an adapter, but it's discontinued because technology moves forward and demand declines over time. Although this article discusses a different type of dongle connected to an iMate, a software download was needed for dongle recognition:

"(Griffin's iMate) is a USB-to-ADB adaptor originally designed to let people plug their old Apple ADB keyboards, trackballs, and so on, into the new Macs. However, it's not as simple as just buying one of these little plastic connectors and plugging it in. To allow something as complicated as a dongle to be seen, you need to go to Griffin's web site and download an extra piece of software which has to be installed to allow the dongles to become visible to their respective programs."

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Answer 9

Jul 21, 2013 1:26 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks a million, BDAqua!

Your mere mention of the driver sent me to the Griffin web site. Downloaded the driver software for the iMate ADB-adapter for Classic, installed it and launched QXP PP. The dongle was recognized instantly and QXP PP is working just fine.

I can't thank you enough.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Answer 10

Jul 21, 2013 1:28 PM in response to Jeff

Jeff, your post solves my problem too, but I read BDAqua's post first and gave him the ten points. I'm giving you five points here and, if you reply, I can give you another 5. 😀

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Answer 11

BDAqua

Level 10

245,459 points

Jul 21, 2013 1:38 PM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

Whoot, great news, thanks! 🙂

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Answer 12

Jeff

Level 6

12,202 points

Jul 21, 2013 2:32 PM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

I'm glad it worked out for you, because so many times now, I'll remember bookmarking a possible solution for future reference. When it involves a downloadable driver, the passage of time often results in a dead link. Either the manufacturer drops continued support of the hardware or the company is acquired by a much larger one, which often means that support for the hardware becomes a footnote on the web site. In any case, your success will provide others with constructive troubleshooting and a solution for problematic dongles connected to an iMate.

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Answer 13

Jul 21, 2013 2:35 PM in response to Jeff

Thank you again, Jeff. 🙂

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