Opinions on the Apple IIe emulator for the Macintosh LC?

[oracle_jedi]

I've always had a soft spot for old school emulators.

 

Although common place today, BITD there was something absolutely fascinating to me about an Atari ST running a PC, ZX81 or TRS80 emulator in software, or emulating a Macintosh with a hardware add-on.

 

I've never owned anything by Apple, and so it was relatively recently I learned about the Apple IIe emulator that Apple made for the Macintosh LC line. It sounds like a really cool idea and it has me interested in trying to acquire an LC III and the Apple IIe card. I like the LC III as it is compact, and still relatively cheap. It seems it would not require a major investment in money or space, and would allow some of the common Mac games of the era to play on native hardware.

 

What's everyone's opinion on the Apple IIe card? Does it allow most IIe applications and games to run, or it is only a subset of the most well behaved apps and only games that do little to exploit the IIe's features? If I got one, would popular IIe games that run fine be the norm, or the exception?

 

Interested to hear people's thoughts.

 

 

[The Usotsuki]

I think it's pretty good, although there's a software(?) bug in its implementation of DGR 80x48 mode.

 

Correct:

 

From an actual Macintosh LC:

[DistantStar001]

The //e card and software environment isn't an emulator, it's a user interface that allows you to interact with additional hardware. The difference being that the //e card is a near full Apple II complete with an integrated 65c02 processor minus a hand full of functions (like RAM and ports) that the Macintosh logic board provides. The software simply allows you to interact with it. In essence, installing a //e card is literally installing a full Apple //e into your Macintosh. By contrast, an emulator simulates all that hardware in software as well as the user interface. Sadly, 68k Macs aren't powerful enough to do that. Although interestingly, PowerPC Macs actually do run an emulator in the background in order to run 68k compatible software.

 

The truth is that the //e card was never really meant to provide a true Apple II experience. Rather, it was meant to help //e users to migrate over to the Macintosh platform,

 

That said, the //e card is remarkably compatible with most Apple II software, so long as it's 65c02 compatible. Some older software designed for the 6502 won't work (this includes most but not all versions of Centipede that I've found), and the color/black and white options can be a little wonky with some text-based programs. Bank Street Writer, for instance, won't display legibly in black and white mode, and the artifact color makes the text unreadable in color mode. AppleWorks, on the other hand, works just fine in both.

 

The biggest annoyance for me (in use) is the "Reset" key. On an Apple //e, holding "Control-Reset" goes to Basic prompt, and "Control-Command/Open Apple-Reset" reboots the computer. On an LC III, the "Reset" key is for a soft reboot. If in //e mode, you hit the "Reset" without hitting the "Control" key at the same time, your whole Macintosh will reboot instead (not just the //e). Since resetting a //e is the principle way to switch between programs without turning it completely off and on again, one can see the problem.

 

Another issue is cost. As I said, this isn't an emulator, so you will need to buy some additional hardware to make this work. At minimum, you'll need a 5.25 in floppy drive (which isn't too expensive) and disks, plus the Y-cable to connect it (those things were going for around $90 alone the last I checked). Add the actual //e card (another $100-$200), the LC III (probably $100 plus), a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and price wise, you're well past the cost of an actual //e that would run more software.

[JDW-]

On 4/14/2019 at 5:12 PM, DistantStar001 said:

The truth is that the //e card was never really meant to provide a true Apple II experience. Rather, it was meant to help //e users to migrate over to the Macintosh platform,

I have heard that said by many, but if it is true that the IIe experience was not important enough for Apple to perfect, such would in theory also be true of the IIgs because its Mega II chip is the elder brother of the Gemini used on the IIe Card.

 

With that said, what led me to this forum on this thread was this Total Reply bug report I filed on Github recently. I am getting vertical stripes in the game Flapple Bird which don't exist on IIe Emulators or a real IIe...  

 

 

Unfortunately, I too am getting the same oddball color bars  when testing Double Lo-res...

 

 

Since the video is handled on the Mac side when using a IIe Card, and because the "ROM" is implemented in the "IIe Startup" app (from what I understand), would it not be a matter of fixing the problem in a revised version of the IIe Startup app, as opposed to a hardware issue on the IIe Card itself?

[The Usotsuki]

People have suggested that to me when I described it elsewhere (think I mentioned it on comp.sys.apple2).  It has to do with the color bitmap being in a different order between even and odd columns and the Mac app not getting that right (something I learned when writing an emulator of my own).

 

I have the card, btw.

[JDW-]

19 minutes ago, The Usotsuki said:

People have suggested that to me when I described it elsewhere (think I mentioned it on comp.sys.apple2).  It has to do with the color bitmap being in a different order between even and odd columns and the Mac app not getting that right (something I learned when writing an emulator of my own).

 

I have the card, btw.

Glad to hear you too have a IIe Card.  It's hard to get feedback from fellow IIe Card owners.  I recently posted Part I and Part II videos about my experience with the IIe Card in a Color Classic Mystic.

 

I have been told that the Virtual ][ emulator also had the exact same issue with Double Lo-Rez mode until Gerard made a fix back in 2015 in version 7.5.  I sent him an email earlier today to ask for technical specifics on what he did to fix that.  Because the video side is handled by the Mac, which in turn is handled by the IIe Startup app, it could be there is a way to hack the app to fix the problem in similar fashion to how Virtual ][ was fixed.

 

One other thing I have found is that when I use version 2.2.2d1 (LC575 compatible, newest version) of the IIe Startup app, I read ProDOS data from real disks inserted into my Color Classic MYSTIC (LC575 motherboard) just fine, but I cannot Format or Write data to the same disks.  However, if I use the slightly older version 2.2.1 IIe Startup app, I can Format & Write without issue.  So why not just use 2.2.1 instead?  Because that app stops launching if I overclock my Mystic above 40MHz, while v.2.2.2d1 continues working.  I mention this only to say there are other quirks in the IIe Startup app that could perhaps be fixed with an app hack.  Such is beyond my capabilities, but perhaps within the means of a brilliant programmer out there.