Source: https://unsplash.com/

The creation of an emulator for whatever machine or CPU architecture is quite a task. You want it to be fully compatible with the original, cycle accurate, you want to support external hardware like gamepads and joysticks, you want sound, fullscreen mode and a graphical user interface, that does not suck.

You're on to one already? It’s an emulator for the Apple ][? Think twice, because you have a fully fledged competitor out there.

Virtual ][ is a commercial product, but for a good reason. Not only does it come with all mentioned features, it can emulate the Apple ][, ][+ and //e.

The creator Gerard Putter (not sure, whether this is his twitter) delivers a rock solid piece of 0s and 1s packaged into a .dmg file which currently only runs on a Mac. x86 and arm based hosts are supported, but only Gerard knows, whether there will be ports for Linux or Windows in the future. 

It is simply amazing how far we have gotten with emulation. I see myself emulating a vintage M1 arm CPU in ES2041 on a phone. 🤳