SCAL is neither in the cutter machine or on a USB stick. The original buyer of a machine is given a "code" when they buy the machine which is the "license" to use to install SCAL on their computer. That code is provided in their welcome email I believe. However, that license is for the original buyer only and is NOT transferable per the EULA from SCAL once it has been installed by the original buyer. Thus if you bought the machine used - and the original buyer already activated their SCAL license - you will have to buy your own license and install SCAL directly from the developer, Craft Edge, site. This can be done on their home site here:
http://craftedge.com NOTE: There are several versions of SCAL - SCAL 4 is the latest. Then there is SCAL 4 Pro that offers some different options but costs more $. You will need to review carefully the differences on their site to determine which is best for your needs. If the original buyer did not activate their SCAL license, and wanted to provide that to you that would be up to them. If you bought your machine new and did not get the SCAL code, you would need to contact support to get help.
As Gigi already noted, the primary purpose of SCAL is to send the "cutting instructions" to the cutter. That was what SCAL was designed for - to send "cut" files to electronic cutters. While you can do basic design work with SCAL (and many people do), it is not intended to be a heavy duty and thus much more expensive design program like Illustrator and Core Draw. It does not have all the "bells and whistles" of those high end programs. It was not created to compete with those programs. It was created simply to allow users to do basic work and send cutting instructions to their cutters. However, that said its also true that not everyone who uses the cutters want to pay $$$$ for high end design programs like AI and CD and SCAL meets their needs. Others choose to use a free program like Inkscape to design in and then use SCAL to cut. That is the great thing about these cutters and SCAL, you can design in the program of choice and then export out in SVG and bring it into SCAL to cut with. If you presently design in Illustrator or Corel Draw, you can continue to do so and then simply use SCAL to "cut" with. However, you will still need to have a licensed copy to do so.