I want to use my cubase 5 software on a modern lap top but only have a 25 pin dongle…how can I convert this to a USB dongle or will a 25 pin to 9 pin adaptor work…
Many thanks
Tony
Do you mean the Parallel port dongle for Cubase VST5/32 ?
If so, you can transfer the licence over to a USB dongle, depending on what colour your dongle is.
Once that’s done, the old dongle becomes a doorstop as there won’t be a licence on it anymore.
I did have a maroon/winered (something like that) dongle at one point, and it WAS for Cubase! 
Though I cannot recall if it was VST 5 in particular.
Same here. That’s a Cubase VST3.x dongle. AFAIK you can’t ransfer license from that one. So ability to transfer the license depends on the color of the dongle.
Maybe it was more a logical choice and not so much an intentional plan. Also, Syncrosoft ran the eLicenser technology up until a few years ago.
On the Atari the dongle was different yet. 
According to this wiki: “On December 1 2008 Steinberg announced that it had acquired the eLicenser technology and know-how from Syncrosoft.”
Cubase 5 was released in January 2009, so that would correspond to the Syncrosoft/Steinberg acquisition.
I think it is now a USB-eLicenser.
Though if I were to guess lightly, I would say that the future of dongles is the Internet. For professionals, this is a major concern of course, but I think that seem to be the aim of software distributors nowadays. I think we can safely thank Apple for making that trend a public reality so fast. (That was a sarcastic remark, in case someone was wondering. )