An (almost) single-chip Apple IIe

The Apple II is one of the most iconic microcomputers, and [James Lewis] decided to use the "Apple IIe on Chip" Mega-II from an Apple IIgs to build a tiny Apple IIe .

Although there was an Apple II compatibility board using the associated Gemini chip, it was initially unclear if the Mega-II could even work outside of an Apple IIgs given the lack of documentation for either Apple II SOC. [Lewis] finally got the Mega-II started after a lot of debugging and design effort. The system is built with three boards: the Mega-II and RAM board, a CPU board with a 65C02, and a video output board.

To simplify routing, the boards are all four-layer PCBs. Unfortunately, the chips needed to make this system, in particular the Mega-II, are not available on their own and must be harvested from an existing IIgs. [Lewis] took care to ensure that any desoldering or other part removal was done in such a way that it could be reversed. If you want to see all the practical details, check out his GitHub for the project.

If you want another 6502-based computer in a small package, why not try this one built on Perf+ cards?