Re: Religious Apple IIe

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Mark Lensenmayer writes ...
> 
> I heard a few years ago of a modification to the Apple IIe that allowed
> only "approved" software in religious institutions.  It was designed for
> equipment that was purchased by federal money for religious schools.  It
> seemed to be a slightly modified ROM that allowed only certain software to
> run.  This way, the schools could not run religious titles on the federal
> machines.
> 
> I've never actually seen one of these, and I'd be curious is anyone had
> experiences with them.
>

     This sounds more like an Art Bell kind of topic.

     It is possible to screen-in (allow) certain titles and screen-out others 
using a variety of techniques. For example, a series of programs employing a 
specific copy-protection technique would be fairly easy to detect. Another 
approach would be to check volume names of ProDOS diskettes.

     Screening-in just specifically allowed wares would be especially easy. 
You just encode each file and have the ROM set up to reject any file without 
the correct encoding. This technique would exclude more than just "religious" 
software.

     My guess is that, however daffy, some federal government agency tried 
something like one of the above schemes. Probably, a few A2 hackers had many 
of the machines 'fixed' within a few days of delivery.


Rubywand