The Virtual II Emulator, a full featured shareware Apple II Emulator has been updated. Virtual II Version 12.1 includes a slew of updates and fixes including the following items:
- Improved rendering of the Apple II high resolution graphics. The colors as well as the color transitions now better resemble the original machine’s output on an NTSC TV.
Note that the previous high resolution rendering can still be selected in the application settings. - Restored support for the iBuffalo Classic USB Gamepad.
- Added the property screen sharpening to the Applescript vocabulary, so a script can now also switch this feature on or off.
- In macOS 15 (Seqoia) connecting an emulated Super Serial card caused the devices area to be drawn incorrectly. This has been solved.
- Fixed an issue, first appearing in version 12.0, where the button for selecting a custom ROM failed to work.
The virtual II emulator is the product of long time developer Gerard Putter and has been in development consistently for the past 20 plus years. The emulator includes the ability to emulate the Apple II, II+, IIe and the IIc computers. Virtual ][ requires a Mac with macOS 12.0 (“Monterey”) or better. It runs natively on both the Apple silicon Mac and Intel Mac.
Some of the key features of the emulator 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 output is saved as a pdf file
- 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.
You can download the latest version of the Virtual II emulator or purchase the full version of the application from the Virtual II website at: https://www.virtualii.com. For more information on the Virtual II features, check out the help page at: https://www.virtualii.com/VirtualIIHelp/virtual_II_help.html. Older versions for previous Mac OS platforms are also available for download from the Virtual II website.
