(This article collects Ivan Drucker’s emulator reviews published in the December 2020 and 2021 issues of Juiced.GS. For the latest updates, please see the December 2022 issue!)
- The Best Apple II Emulators
- Good Apple II Emulators
- For Technical Users
- Other Apple II Emulators
- The Unreviewed
Not all of us have our Apple II computers by our side at all times. The next best thing (and sometimes a better thing) is an emulator! An emulator is a virtual Apple II, recreated in software. Its hardware components, from the 6502 on up, are mimicked, as part of an application written for a different operating system. Disks are represented as “image files” containing their data, and, while running in an emulator, Apple II software has no awareness that it’s not running on the real thing! Emulators allow us to use the software of our favorite computer on something more modern.
The Apple II community is graced with a veritable cornucopia of excellent emulator choices for Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. Choosing the right one can be difficult—so let me outline the pros and cons of each.
While this roundup is not a comprehensive list of Apple II emulators, I’ve included feature complete titles with formal releases which emulate an enhanced Apple IIe at minimum, and which run on current versions of major operating systems. Those that have not been updated in more than eleven years have been excluded. All but one are free of cost.
All macOS titles are native for both newer Apple silicon and older Intel-based machines unless otherwise noted; Intel-only titles will run in translation on Apple silicon models. Mac users who receive a warning that the application cannot be opened because the developer can’t be verified will need to, on first run, control-click the application, choose Open from the menu, and then choose Open from the subsequent warning dialog.
For Windows titles, users with high DPI displays may need to adjust compatibility settings of the emulator’s EXE file by viewing its properties in Windows Explorer.
This revision of the original December 2020 article incorporates the December 2021 update article. Editorial changes have been made as well.
The Best Apple II Emulators
These emulators are feature-rich, offer accurate emulation, and are relatively easy to use.
Virtual II
Platform: macOS
Models emulated: II, II plus, IIe-U, IIe-E
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, HDV, 2MG, NIB, WOZ, V2D, GZ
Status: actively developed (v10.5.1 released November 2021)
Author: Gerard Putter
Available from: https://virtualii.com/
Virtual II does nearly everything you could ask for from an emulator. It has a highly polished, easy-to-navigate interface, and it faithfully recreates an Apple II, II Plus, IIe, or enhanced IIe. What really makes Virtual II stand out, however, is its collection of virtual hardware and the flexibility with which you can deploy it. Much like a real Apple II, you get to choose which peripheral card you want to put in which slot, and to which devices you want to attach those cards. Included are floppy and hard drive interface cards, memory cards, a parallel printer card, serial cards, a CP/M card, clock cards, a Mockingboard card, and a mouse card. Some of these offer integration with macOS: the Super Serial Card can send and receive through an actual macOS interface, and one of the printers can output to a macOS text file.
Inbuilt Apple II hardware is represented as well. The CPU speed (for both the 6502/65C02, and optional Z-80) can be sped up. The cassette port and game connector are also emulated, and for an emulated II/II+, onboard memory quantity and shift-key modification may be selected. Programmers will also appreciate the integrated 6502 debugger. Multiple machines may be emulated in separate windows, and the Apple II screen can be recorded to a movie file. The emulated machine state may be saved at any time. There is support for extracting files from ShrinkIt archives, but file type information is lost, making Kelvin Sherlock’s Shrink-Fit X a better tool for the job.
Disk support deserves its own mention. For 5.25″ floppies, one or more emulated Disk II cards can host two Disk II drives, and the physical sound of the drive itself is simulated (via audio samples). For 3.5″ and hard disks, virtual hardware (with no real-world counterpart) is provided: one or more “SCSI II” cards can host one or two “OmniDisk” drives, which each functionally operate as a removable ProDOS hard disk, and support any disk image up to 32mb.
Best of all, any Mac folder can be “inserted” into a drive and treated as either a ProDOS or DOS 3.3 disk (either 140K or 32 MB in size, depending on whether you’re using the Disk II or the OmniDisk), greatly easing transfer of individual files between macOS and the emulated Apple II. Virtual II also provides its own Spotlight interface for searching Apple II filenames across and within disk images, and the catalog of a disk image can be quickly seen via macOS QuickLook, cleverly superimposing file names on a graphic of a floppy disk label. Disk writes are not saved to the disk image until the virtual disk is ejected, the emulator window is closed, or a “flush” command is chosen from a menu.
I could go on and on, but I’ll conclude by saying that Virtual II, in addition to its versatility, gets innumerable fine details right, has sparkling fit and finish, and provides excellent documentation; its $44 price tag is more than justified. (A $19 “limited” version is available, but it omits some useful features like saved states, printing, screen recording, and macOS folder mounting; a free “evaluation” version additionally employs watermarks and forced pauses.)
AppleWin
Platform: Windows
Models emulated: Apple II, II Plus/J-Plus, IIe (U), IIe (E); some Apple II clones
Image support: DSK, PO, HDV, 2MG, NIB, WOZ, ZIP, GZ
Status: actively developed (v1.30.6.0, released October 30, 2021)
Authors: Tom Charlesworth, Nick Westgate, Michael Pohoreski, et al
Available from: https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin/releases
The pre-eminent 8-bit Apple II emulator for Microsoft Windows is AppleWin, whose origins date all the way back to 1994. AppleWin is straightforward, with a compact interface, nearly unchanged from its Windows 3.1 beginnings. It offers accurate emulation, including a variety of simulated monitor styles, and a robust assortment of useful virtual hardware items, pre-assigned to their typical slots in an Apple II. Included are four 5.25″ floppy drives and two hard drives; Mockingboard with speech, Phasor, and SAM sound cards; a CP/M card; an Uthernet network card; a Super Serial card (which can communicate either with a real Windows serial port, or via TCP); a mouse; SNES MAX and 4Play game controller cards, and a parallel printer card. No actual printer is emulated; output is sent to a Windows text file. The window size is not arbitrarily scalable.
Many more hardware configuration options are available by launching AppleWin from a command prompt or batch file, or by appending the appropriate command line switches to the target of a Windows shortcut. While not all these are of everyday interest, it’s unfortunate that this method is required for potentially desirable configurations, such as more than 128K of memory, or a default peripheral card removed from its slot. It would benefit AppleWin if some of the command line launch options were added to its configuration window. Still, it’s nice to have them exist at all.
AppleWin provides integration with the essential Apple II disk image utility CiderPress, which eases exchanging files between Windows and the emulated Apple II. The emulated machine state can be saved, and the CPU can be accelerated. For Apple II programmers, AppleWin includes a powerful debugger. Reading the included help file is highly recommended to learn about all the emulator’s capabilities and how to access them. For Windows users wanting to emulate an Apple II, AppleWin does what it does very well.
KEGS (including GSport and GSplus)
Platform: macOS, Linux (Windows via GSport or GSplus)
Status: actively developed (v1.14 released November 14, 2021)
Models emulated: IIGS (ROM 01 and 3)
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, HDV, 2MG, WOZ, SDK, ZIP, GZ
Author: Kent Dickey
Available from: https://kegs.sourceforge.net/
GSport: https://david-schmidt.github.io/gsport
GSplus: https://apple2.gs/plus
KEGS (Kent’s Emulated GS) is a very full-featured Apple IIGS emulator, originating in the 1990s, with a somewhat clunky (though not difficult) text menu driven interface. In late 2020, after a 16-year hiatus, KEGS began receiving excellent enhancements, leapfrogging over its offshoots GSport and GSplus (which were separately reviewed in the original version of this article). Despite a few rough edges, KEGS is a top-notch emulator which now represents the best Apple IIGS emulation option for Mac and Linux users. (Windows support is stated as forthcoming; until then, GSport and GSplus as worthwhile alternatives.)
KEGS offers most of what a real Apple IIGS does. You can use virtual versions of the inbuilt “slot cards” visible in the IIGS control panel. The 65816 CPU can be accelerated, and a debugger is available. Memory can be expanded to 14 MB. Unfortunately, the technical status area beneath the emulation window cannot be hidden. An oddity is that the screen border is sometimes uneven on the sides.
Disk usage is flexible in KEGS. There are two 3.5″ floppy drives, two 5.25″ floppy drives, and eleven SmartPort drives which can be used for ProDOS disk images up to 32 MB. The 5.25″ drives virtually “grind,” just as they do on a real machine, when ProDOS or GS/OS is scanning every drive for a specific volume, and it really slows things down.
Notable recent capabilities in KEGS, compared to GSport and GSplus, include native support for both Apple silicon and Intel Macs, resizable windows, a virtual Mockingboard, WOZ disk image support, joystick support, an improved debugger, copy-paste ability from host OS to emulated GS/OS, and precise timing accuracy when running at 2.8 MHz.
GSport, by David Schmidt and others, and GSplus, by Dagen Brock, are derivatives of a 2004 release of KEGS. They lack many of the above recently added features, and these variants are no longer developed. What they do offer over KEGS are ready to use Windows versions, as well as emulation of Uthernet I and various printers such as ImageWriter LQ. GSport also emulates AppleTalk. GSplus removes the unsightly status window, and, importantly, it can present a folder from the host OS as though it is a GS/OS volume, greatly easing the transfer of files between the two systems.For Mac users who want these features, GSplus is the better option, as it is a 64-bit application which runs on modern versions of macOS (via Intel translation on newer Apple silicon based Macs, though developers can recompile it to be native).
Mac users will want to grant full disk access to the KEGSMAC application, in the Privacy area of System Preferences. Linux users will need to build from source code. KEGS users should certainly read the comprehensive README file, and may also wish to read the more attractively presented documentation for the very similar GSport and GSplus.
While KEGS is a great emulator, I wish for more polish around its user interface (particularly when it comes to selecting disks), more ready-to-use Mac packaging (an application icon would be nice), a way to disable or speed up the the drives in slot 6, and incorporation of the networking, printing, and display enhancements provided by GSport and GSplus.
Good Apple II Emulators
These emulators may be a bit less polished or a bit harder to use, but they’re still quite functional.
OpenEmulator
Platform: macOS (Intel, runs in translation on Apple silicon)
Models emulated: Apple II, II Plus/Europlus/J-Plus, IIe (U), IIe (E); Apple I (and clones)
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, HDV, 2MG, WOZ, DC42, V2D, FDI, VDI, VDMK
Status: actively developed (v1.0.5 released Feb 5, 2019)
Authors: Marc S. Ressl, Tobias Eriksson, Zellyn Hunter, 4AM, et al
Available from: https://openemulator.github.io/
OpenEmulator is an easy-to-use emulator that aims for a high degree of fidelity to a real Apple II’s appearance, including the ability to choose from different historic monitor types. The emulated machine state can be saved at any time. It offers flexibility via virtual slots, to which virtual hardware interface cards and accessories may be connected. Peripherals represented include floppy disk (with mechanical sounds sampled from a real drive) and hard disk (with a wide array of image formats supported), memory expansion, and some unusual options, such as an emulated Apple Graphics Tablet (which works great with Dazzle Draw), a SilentType thermal printer, and precision floppy disk tuning. However, there are notable omissions, such as a clock card, mouse card, memory card, sound card, and CPU acceleration.
While actively maintained, OpenEmulator has not acquired many new capabilities in recent years. With that said, open source community members have kept OpenEmulator relevant, adding support for WOZ disk images and Apple IIe emulation. There are some rough spots, such as an option to emulate an Apple III that simply yields an error, and a mysterious virtual CPU socket that says “disconnected” when the emulator is plainly running.
For Mac users who want a no-cost, user-friendly 8-bit Apple II emulator with a fair bit of flexibility, OpenEmulator is a very functional choice. But if it doesn’t do something you want, don’t hold your breath waiting for that feature to appear in a new release.
Ample
Platform: macOS
Models emulated: all 8-bit Apple II models (including Apple IIc and IIc Plus); Laser 128, 128EX, 128EX2; Apple-1; Apple III; Apple IIGS (ROM 00, 01, 3); many clones
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, HDV, 2MG, WOZ, DC42, EDD, CHD
Status: actively developed (current version: r36/248, released September 28, 2021)
Author: Kelvin Sherlock
Available from: https://github.com/ksherlock/ample/releases
Ample is not actually an emulator, but a valuable utility for Mac users that makes the powerful multi-machine, multi-platform emulator called MAME (reviewed below) dramatically easier to use for Apple II emulation.
Kelvin Sherlock’s Ample solves the problem of MAME’s complexity. Instead of having to learn command line syntax or stumbling around the awkward MAME graphical interface, Ample does the heavy lifting for you, with an uncomplicated interface to help unlock the power of MAME with a minimum of fuss. That’s not to say Ample transforms MAME into something as user-friendly as your typical emulator, but it gets part of the way there.
In addition to providing a prebuilt, Apple II-specialized version of MAME, and fetching needed ROM files for you, Ample provides a straightforward window which lets you specify exactly which machine you wish to emulate, and which peripheral cards (of the over 50 available, listed by full name) you want in its slots. You can also easily select otherwise obscure MAME options, like capturing the Mac mouse, which eliminates the “double pointer” issue in GS/OS which I mention in the MAME review.
Ample will then launch MAME as you have configured it—though once running, if you want to do things like switch disks, you will still need to press Fn-delete, followed by tab, to navigate through MAME’s awkward native interface. Ample also provides shortcuts to documentation for MAME and its Apple II-specific modules.
While still not as smooth an experience as using one of the dedicated Apple II emulator titles, Ample is well worth checking out for any Mac user interested in using MAME for Apple II emulation, especially if previously deterred from doing so.
Agat
Platform: Windows
Models emulated: Apple II, II Plus/J-Plus, IIe (U), IIe (E); Apple I
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, HDV
Status: unclear (current version: 1.29.2, released Feb 16, 2019)
Authors: Sergey Gromov and Oleg Odintsov
Available from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/agatemulator/files/agatemulator
Agat is not as well known as other Apple II emulators, but it’s worthy of attention. Named after an Apple II inspired, Soviet-made line of computers (which it also emulates), Agat is easy to use, has some original features, and performs well, providing a wide range of virtual hardware which can be flexibly configured.
Peripherals include 5.25″ floppy and hard drive cards (with harsh mechanical sound samples you may want to disable), clock, Mockingboard, memory expansion, mouse, CP/M, cassette, accelerated CPU, and printer (with an option for text file output). Some of Agat’s more intriguing options include a Liberty floppy drive card for 3.5″ disk sizes from 200K (SSSD) to 800K (DSDD), an Apple Firmware card in slot 0 (rather than a 16K memory card), “Slinky” memory expansion, and an integrated debugger that simply simulates the Apple II monitor. Sound emulation is sub-par.
While most of the emulators listed here offer some capability of saving different machine configurations, Agat is the only one to colorfully display them in a library, and it comes preset with 45 to choose from (not all of which are Apple II computers). It’s a great way to quickly try out its various capabilities, and you can run several emulated machines at the same time. A running machine state cannot be saved.
Agat seems unlikely to receive improvements, but, for Windows users, it offers a bit more flexibility than AppleWin, with comparable ease of use. Be sure to click the included help button for the keyboard shortcuts.
microM8
Platform: macOS (Intel, runs in translation on Apple silicon), Windows, Linux
Models emulated: Apple II, II Plus, IIe (E)
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, WOZ
Authors: Paleotronic
Status: unclear (v1.0.0 released Dec 16, 2019)
Available from: https://paleotronic.com/software/microm8/
microM8 (known in its earlier versions as The Octalyzer) is a very good, but unusual Apple II emulator. It is so different from others that it can be hard to wrap your head around. While a typical emulator sticks to imitating physical hardware via software, microM8 leaps into realms that a real Apple II wouldn’t see, such as perspective 3D graphics and rewindable live gameplay. This emulator seems less concerned with faithful replication of Apple II history and more with making Woz’s baby perform cool new tricks through virtualization.
While microM8 can be mostly used as one would use any other Apple II emulator, that’s not where its heart is. When you start it up with drives empty, you don’t see “Apple ][” atop an empty space; instead, you see a colorful, animated splash screen, which invites you to do all kinds of things, such as loading its own enhanced BASIC or connecting to an Internet BBS. Probably microM8’s most immediately appealing feature is the ability to load a drive from a large online repository. There is not an extensive selection of hardware peripherals, though common ones are represented in their usual slots. A very conspicuous omission is hard drive or 3.5-inch floppy support; only 5.25-inch drive images may be used.
Despite its friendly appearance and online documentation, microM8 can be challenging to use. It has many keyboard commands that are described on a help screen, and it also offers various options when launching from a command prompt. Fortunately, there is also a menu system, which you find by hovering in the upper left corner of the emulator window. (An optional GUI control panel can also be downloaded, though I didn’t find it especially useful.) Some of microM8’s capabilities are quite sophisticated, such as a powerful web based 6502 debugger, an HTTP control API, and a software packaging mechanism. There are also a lot of options for video modes, screen recording, and more. I’m sure I did not discover all the things it can do.
microM8 is of high quality for a 1.0 release, and it is an extremely creative product. If Apple II emulators were movies, it could be a cult favorite. And it’s fun to play with, even if you already have your emulator of choice.
For Technical Users
These emulators are not plug-and-play, so prepare to get your hands dirty.
MAME (Apple II modules)
Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux
Models emulated: all 8-bit Apple II models (including Apple IIc and IIc Plus); Laser 128, 128EX, 128EX2; Apple-1; Apple III; Apple IIGS; many clones
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, HDV, 2MG, WOZ, DC42, EDD, CHD
Status: actively developed (0.238, released November 24, 2021)
Authors: various
Available from: https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/Driver:Apple_II
MAME is not an Apple II emulator per se. Rather, it is a superemulator, first released in 1997, which now supports thousands of vintage arcade games and computers, if you are able to provide the needed ROM files for the machine you want. It is a towering achievement in historic game emulation.
MAME originally emulated arcade machines, but its scope has expanded to include personal computers (via incorporation of an offshoot project called MESS), and the Apple II is represented among these. MAME’s Apple II capabilities are remarkably robust, yet not great fun to use, because they are hampered by an unintuitive, generic interface shared by all the other emulated arcade games and computers; it is arguably easier to start MAME’s Apple II emulation directly from a command prompt. There is also not much Apple II specific documentation. A dedicated Apple II emulator will do a better job for most people.
With that said, MAME has a philosophy of not mere emulation, but immortality for hardware, and as such provides a vast array of virtual historic Apple II interface cards and peripherals, several of which I wasn’t even aware of. It is also the only modern emulator I know of that offers Apple IIc or Apple III emulation, and MAME runs on nearly every personal computer platform. If these capabilities appeal to you, MAME may well be worth your effort. Furthermore, MAME’s Apple II abilities are frequently improving. MAME’s Apple IIGS emulation is notable for existing at all, and it does work, but it has some challenging aspects, such as not hiding the host machine mouse pointer when in windowed mode without an obscure command line option.
An important keyboard command when using MAME is forward-delete (Fn-delete on a Mac without a Del key), which toggles between enabling MAME’s keyboard controls, and sending all keys to the emulated Apple II. Also, if you want MAME to run in a window, rather than full-screen, you will need to launch it from a command prompt, and use the “-window” option. Be cautioned that many of the settings available in MAME’s graphical interface are not saved as part of either machine state or configuration, so you may be better off bypassing the GUI entirely and specifying exactly what you want in your virtual Apple II with command prompt options and configuration file editing. I highly advise reading both the general MAME documentation as well as its Apple II specific notes. Mac users are recommended to use Ample (reviewed above) to reduce the difficulty of launching MAME.
LinApple
Platform: Linux
Models emulated: Apple II, II Plus, IIe (E)
Image support: DSK, PO, NIB, HDV
Status: unclear (v2b released June 26, 2015; newer forks exist but no formal releases)
Authors: various (creator: Andrey Tzar)
Available from: https://linapple.sourceforge.net (2015 release), https://github.com/linappleii/linapple (current)
LinApple is similar to what AppleWin was in 2007, but with a different user interface. Compared with AppleWin, some features are absent, and new ones have been added. Much of LinApple is based on AppleWin code, so it emulates an Apple II well, yet feels quite different from AppleWin to operate. There are no graphical controls. All operation is performed via the function keys—fortunately, a help screen is provided—and configuration is performed by editing a text file. I would normally consider these to be negatives, but they’re not unusual for Linux. Neither is the fact that LinApple must be compiled from its source code. In other words, LinApple requires more technical ability than other emulators.
Like AppleWin, LinApple provides commonly used virtualized peripherals in their usual slots. Present are two 5.25″ floppy drives, two hard drives, Mockingboard and Phasor sound cards, various monitor emulations, a printer card which writes to a text file in the host operating system, and a mouse card. Memory beyond 128K is not available. The CPU can be accelerated, and the machine state can be saved. One added capability is an integrated FTP browser for loading the virtual disk drives from images on a remote server, though it’s difficult to get working.
One charming aspect of LinApple is the author’s obvious enthusiasm for the project and for the Apple II—his personality shines through in the language of the help screen, the documentation, and the configuration files. However, he has not maintained the project since 2015. Others have since picked it up and enhanced it; I briefly attempted to use the latest source code (there has been no formal release), but found it to be unstable. Your mileage may vary.
If you’re using Linux, and want to emulate an 8-bit Apple II, LinApple will get the job done, if you can clear its hurdles.
Other Apple II Emulators
A few other Apple II emulators are worth mentioning, though they lack essential features or support.
cyanIIde (pronounced “cyanide”) is an all-new, Web-based, no-cost, closed-source emulator by Paleotronic, makers of the microM8 emulator. It is hosted on the Paleotronic website, but is primarily intended for embedding Apple II programs on one’s own website, so you can also download code for installing cyanIIde on your own pages. It is notable for having cycle-accurate video rendering, joystick support, and printer emulation in a web browser, and in general appears to offer a high quality of emulation, which is impressive considering the limited environment. There aren’t a lot of additional capabilities; you can insert disk images (including in WOZ format), and that’s about it. cyanIIde is probably not the go-to emulator you’d want to use on a desktop computing platform, but is pretty cool if you want to embed an Apple II on your website, or want to run Apple II software on a Chromebook or a “walled garden” platform like iOS/iPadOS (though there is no onscreen keyboard, which makes input challenging if you don’t have a physical keyboard for your mobile device). Due to being written in WebAssembly, cyanIIde may not work in every browser.
Apple ][js (and Apple ][jse and Apple 1js) by Will Scullin is a simple but impressive, Web-based, open source emulator of the Apple II Plus, IIe Enhanced, and Apple-1, written in JavaScript and HTML5. This means it can be used on “walled garden” mobile platforms such as iOS, or browser-based systems like ChromeBooks. Since Apple ][js is on the web, a virtual Apple II is immediately accessible to anyone sitting in front of nearly any computer in the world. A small library of software is provided, and common hardware is emulated in typical slots. Locally stored disk images can be uploaded, and WOZ images are supported. Apple ][js is not as full featured as the other emulators described here, but it successfully performs the essentials—no small feat considering the constrained environment of a Web browser.
JACE by Brendan Robert is an easy-to-use, open source, multi-platform, very high quality Apple IIe Enhanced emulator that would belong in the “Good Apple II Emulators” section above if not for its dependency on Java, which is hard to recommend installing in 2021 if you don’t have another need for it. JACE provides an assortment of expected virtual peripheral cards, which can be flexibly installed into slots. There are also some uncommon options, such as a Passport MIDI interface (“for Ultima V”), and a Hayes Micromodem II. Other neat features include a simple development environment for writing BASIC and 6502 assembly code using the host OS, and a “cheat” function for observing memory changes. JACE seems quite capable, but other excellent emulators exist which do not require installation of Java. JACE has also not been updated in a few years, and so seems unlikely to gain new abilities.
The unreviewed
There are many Apple II emulator projects I chose to exclude because, as of December 2021, they are not yet released, or require specialty hardware, or aren’t functionally complete, or require building from source code on non-Linux systems, or they don’t emulate an enhanced Apple IIe at minimum. Still, their authors have put effort into them, and these titles each have their own focus and qualities, and hopefully they will blossom into great Apple II emulators. These include, but presumably aren’t limited to: 8bitworkshop.com, Apple2ts, Accurapple, Aiie!, ApplePi, Clemens, Epple ][, pico-iie, Steve ][, and XGS. There are also excellent Apple II emulators I haven’t mentioned on this list or in the above reviews, either because they haven’t been updated in the last 11 years, or because they don’t run on current versions of mainstream operating systems. (Sorry, Sweet16—we miss you!)
