Defined in the dictionary as 'an electronic device that accompanies a software item to prevent the unauthorised copying of programs', a dongle's a piece of kit you need to accompany certain pre-mastered games.

A dongle these days usually comes as either a memory card that's needed to play an early PlayStation game or a bit of hardware to stick in your PC's serial port if you're looking at an early PC game. The N64's cartridge system usually negates the need for dongles however.

But dongles were not always software security devices. Way back in the '80s companies attempted to boost the power and therefore the complexity of games for the lowly Spectrum and C64, and in the Spectrum's case, an innovative dongle was produced that you plugged into your computer to boost its memory from 48k to a massive 64k.

The game was called Shadow Of The Unicorn and was a rambling adventure/RPG. Although the hype surrounding the game at the time made the idea of a dongle very attractive, the fact that the extra hardware pushed the price of the game way up and the fact that it was absolute pants meant that nobody bought the game. The experiment was declared an expensive disaster and proved that no matter what technical jiggery pokery you wanted to employ, if you had a rubbish game it was always going to be rubbish.