The Virtual II Apple II Emulator has been updated. Gerard Putter, the curator of the Virtual II emulator announced the update this morning and noted that he had added more features and quashed some bugs in the earlier version of the program. The latest release of Virtual II, version 11.2, includes additional support for the Apple //c and Apple //c+.
A complete list of changes included in this release of Virtual II include the following:
- Created a configuration panel for the Apple //c machines.
- The Apple //c now supports the no-slot clock.
- The standard configuration of the Apple //c with 32KB ROM now has two diskette drives and one OmniDisk drive. A second OmniDisk drive can be configured.
- On a virtual machine with just one floppy disk drive, a crash could occur when the disk stopped spinning. This has been fixed.
- Corrected an error in handling the Language Card switches (memory addresses $D000-$FFFF). This improves general compatibility.
- Improved the “simple text printer”. It used to generate a unique file name on the Desktop; now you have the additional option to specify your own file path.
- The previous release used the term “Apple //c Plus” for an Apple //c with a 32KB version 0 ROM. This was a misnomer, and has been corrected throughout the application.
- Under rare circumstances the Inspector could affect the operation of the virtual machine, even if no breakpoints had been set. This has been solved.
- Clarified some error messages.
- Several minor performance improvements.
You can download an evaluation version of the Virtual II emulator for free from the Virtual II website. If you like Virtual II or want to use the full featured version of the emulator, you can buy a full license and fully enjoy all the fun and nostalgia of the Apple II series computers.
Virtual II is a full featured shareware Apple II emulator and requires a Mac with macOS 10.13 (“High Sierra”) or later. It runs natively on both the Apple silicon Mac and Intel Macs. Some of the features included in the program are as follows:
- The program emulates several machines: Apple ][, ][+, //e, and //c
- Supports USB or Bluetooth game pad / joystick, so you can play the old games. When you need a break, or are a critical junction, just save a snapshot of the virtual machine. You can continue from that point later on.
- Full support for popular disk image formats, such as dsk, 2mg, and woz.
- Printer emulation of the Epson FX-80 and Imagewriter II; the printed output is saved as pdf
- Full-screen mode
- Nostalgic sound effects
- Automatically indexes your disk images, allowing you to search for Apple II files using Spotlight
- Run the emulation at different speeds
- Configure your own virtual machine using emulated peripheral cards and devices, such as a mouse, hard disk, serial port, Mockingboard sound card, Z80 card for running CP/M, and even cassette tape
- Debug Apple II programs
- If you have original diskettes and a working Apple II, Virtual ][ can help you convert the diskettes to the Mac via a serial interface cable.
Additional information is available for free on the Virtual ][ help page.
