Virtual ][ for Mac

User Reviews

• Apple ][ forever...

  risc1October 7, 2006

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />The Apple ][ was recently voted the greatest PC of all time by PCWorld. I think you can say without a doubt that Virtual ][ is the greatest Apple ][ emulator of all time. I purchased this emulator ages ago and it just keeps getting better and better.

  ---

• EXCELLENT

  risc1July 7, 2005

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This is an amazing emulator I can't recommend it highly enough, when I finally get off my a$$ I'll get my credit card and pay for this. Amazing!

  ---

• Excellent upgrade

  adams2--2008March 3, 2005

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I *really* like the ability to run faster than a real Apple ][. It makes a huge difference. I agree with the comment about color-blurred text in HiRes. I know this is the way it looked on the original machines, but I would love to see it improved. Why use an Apple ][ emulator? Because I find many of the old games far more entertaining thant the endless twitch bloodbaths tha seem to be almost all that is made for the Mac

  ---

• Interesting...

  grikdogSeptember 24, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />The Asimov archive does have a lot of old Apple // stuff, including hacked versions of Cranston Manor, Fastgammon, Lisa 2.6, Apple Pascal, etc. A lot of old friends I never expected to see again, in fact. But the emulator needs work. HiRes graphics look awful unless you put them in tinted monochrome (your mileage may vary, they look awful here--hues are choppy and split up, like very bad focus). Some of the emulation problems may be inherited from the bad actors who did the original cracks on copyrighted work (very typical of Apple ][ software, even in the old days), but a emulator <i>can</i> control its own memory leaks and memory management peccadillos. Virtual ][ has caused at least one kernel panic, and sound has dropped out completely more than once. Still, it was worth the &#36;19 for the limited license, just to see the screens and refresh my memory.

  ---

• Almost perfect!

  cfranzMarch 27, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />The new release is almost perfect. It now supports full-screen, all buttons, and many more features (among them up to 10x overclocking). It also reads the many disk formats that (ahem) might be found. The only thing that I feel would be a nice addition is (as other people mentioned) support of HID joysticks directly (to be able to map my cyborg 3d to pdl(0) and (1), as well as the buttons would make this program truly perfect. I want to play Karateka and Elite again - on my Apple II!). Still the small flaw hasn't stopped me from making my donation. Cool piece of software! Definitely recommended for any old-timer who want to become all misty-eyed again.

  ---

• Excellent II and II+ emulator

  ArcturaxMay 5, 2003

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />A wonderfully designed emulator with a very well laid out GUI and very good approximation of the real thing. The good: Supports cassette tape images, impressive! I didn't manage to crash it once. Support for a few add on cards. Ability to emulate popular hardware hacks to the machine such as adding lower case characters and hotwiring the keyboard so software can detect the shift key. Ability to run multiple emulators at once it great. Printer support! I can finally print out some of my old Appleworks docs, if I can figure out how to image the discs that is. Nice documentation which uses Apple's help center interface. There are a few nitpicks with the GUI, the cassette drive was a bit confusing at first until I read the documentation which explains that the tape gets played automatically, no play button to press. The readme should say straight out that IIe roms won't work, had to dig into the docs for that. Wish List: 80 columns card support An Apple IIe version of this with ability to add more ram (like the 128k upgrade card/80 columns card combo) Mockingboard support. Saved state support. Over all, very well done, a IIe encore to this would be just awesome!

  ---

• Nicely done, some important features missing

  cfranzMay 1, 2003

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Virtual II is a nicely executed Apple ][ emulator, but has some important missing features. I really like the interface, and the way you can load disks, choose ROM images etc. It can use many disk images of older emulators, most notably STM's and the 140 KB dsk images. The configure screens are really great, as is the fact that you can run multiple virtual machines side-by-side. You can also load from tape (in this case, an AIFF file, a really nice touch) It lacks, however, the following features: - support for button 1 (it does support button 0 and 3) - only one screen size - I'd like to see the ability to switch to full-screen - it only supports the 140k disk images. Some disks have an additional track, and are 144KB in size. These are immediately dismissed, which is sad, because many programs used the undocumented last track to access additional storage capacity (and, of course, as a copy protection scheme) Other than that, I really like the program and recommend it to everyone who like me, remembers the good old ][ days (ah, when zero-page adressing still meant something).

  ---

• Show reviewsHide reviews
• Rate it