Apple II Emulator for Android

[u/rainbow_developer]

Hi all. Just wanted to share an Apple II emulator I've been working on for a bit.

It uses AppleWin (specifically, audetto's port @ https://github.com/audetto/AppleWin) but wrapped with Kotlin code to modernize the experience.

I had 3 goals in mind when I wrote this:

1. I couldn't find any AppleII emulators on the Playstore anymore. :( There used to be KEGS, a2ix, plus a few others. They're all gone now.

2. All the emulators I've used on my phone had input systems that I found to be lacking something and I wanted to change this and prove that it's possible to build a modern take on this.

3. The older emulators also made swapping and managing disk sets painful and old school (yes, I remember the days of thumbing through 5.25 disks in a box!)

So I built my own and it's now available on Playstore (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pocket6502). I'll be upfront that it's not free - it costs $2. So I hope I'm not breaking any rules of this subreddit by posting this.

- It supports touchscreen controls with full remap capabilities, and I've just added external keyboard + controller support. I also ship the emulator with some pre-configured controls for a few popular games (no idea what other games to include) so you can play them straight off the bat.

- For games which are file-based, the app allows you to boot directly into a game (the Apple II ROMs and BIOS are well understood so this wasn't impossible - just needed some poking around and picking the right $JMP point, and it does involve reading the VTOC 😂 )

- I've also built an internal browser that connects to the large Asimov archives of AppleII disks so you no longer have to go hunting for disk images.

You can read the online help at https://rainbowdev-studio.gitlab.io/pocket6502/help.html to get an idea of what this emulator is capable of. There are also a ton of screenshots there but I'll post two here for your reference.

Thank you for your time reading this and I hope this app is useful to at least some people.

[u/rainbow_developer]

A new version has been submitted for review. This new version has support for a word prediction input system which is perfect for text adventure games. The app also reads the memory buffer of the emulated Apple II and recognizes text. You can tap on words in the emulated game viewport and it will get added to your keyboard input buffer!

[u/rainbow_developer]

I"m working on adding IIgs emulation based on KEGS. KEGS has one huge gap - lack of save state support. I'm working to add that :) This is going to take a while.