Re: What card is this?

[Roger Johnstone <rojaws@orcon.net.nz>]

In <5e7193b4.0402182103.22fbc085@posting.google.com> Willi Kusche wrote:
> Hi, y'all!
> 
>     I have a small card with 3 chips.  Two are 8K by 8 static RAM
> chips (TC5565APL) and the other is marked PAL 20R4AC6N.  Across the
> top is "(C) 1986 THE ENGINEERING DEPT. INC.".  Up the side is
> "SR010081".
> 
> Willi

I believe you have a 16KB language card for an Apple II or II+. By the 
time this card came out 16KB of static RAM was cheap enough that it was 
worth using instead of dynamic RAM. Dynamic RAM is cheaper than static 
RAM, but it requires a lot more support circuitry. The other chip is a 
PAL, or programmable array logic, which can be used to replace several 
normal logic chips.

The Engineering Department is best know (or least known?) as the company 
that designed the PC Transporter, the IBM PC emulation card for the 
Apple II. Applied Engineering bought the PC Transporter from them and 
finished the development of it. I don't know if they bought the entire 
company, but I suspect AE hired their engineers and bought any other 
products they had, so this card may have been sold by Applied 
Engineering.

-- 
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rojaws/
________________________________________________________________________
"But what is it good for?"
    Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM
    commenting on the micro chip, 1968