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TWGS

I was looking at my TWGS earlier.  I am interested in other people's
card version numbers.  If you don't mind, go to the TWGS control panel,
and jot down the following info:  Version, revision, You'll have to look
at the card to get the:  DATE, GAL versions.

Sagochangi:     TWGS: version 8H, rev 1.4x  ???? ??,2A,??,??,??,??,??,??

Mine:           TWGS: version 8S, rev 1.5w  1989 1A,2B,3B,4A,5A,6A,7A,8A



Heres something interesting that I found out. It is very simple and
obvious, but I never noticed it before:  Each Transwarp GS has 8 GAL
chips.  They are numbered 1(X)-8(X)  where (X) is a letter A or B  (were
there other letters?)

What exactly are GAL chips?  I know what they do, but are they IC's?
Are they ROM's?

The GAL's slow down certain instructions that were 'broken' on the older
CPU chips.  The instructions wouldn't operate in high speed, so the
chips slowed those instructions down.

What happens if you run a TWGS without *any* GAL chips?  No slow down,
but will the card operate?

I've read here that the GAL's are hard to copy.  Why is this?  Besides
the obvious reason of copyright (held by a now bankrupt, long gone
company), what is stopping Apple II'ers from copying the fastest GAL
chips?