Re: What...are THESE??

[zwsdotcom@gmail.com]

On Jun 9, 3:14 pm, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:

> Because of the potting, I'd bet it's a "dongle" required to allow
> a relatively expensive application program to run.

Funny, it looks more like an anodized aluminium heatsink in the
picture.

Could be, but I can't imagine - nor can I find on the web - any Apple
II software expensive enough to require this kind of copy protection.
In fact I can't find any record of a piece of Apple II s/w using a
custom card as copy protection.

Lots of hardware back in those days - unrelated to copy protection -
had attempts to obscure the design, typically numbers filed off chips
and other silly hackery. I am wondering if that card is either a
coprocessor/accelerator, or an encryption device and in some way
related to the serial ports that were in the same machine...