An easy Z80 and VGA upgrade for Apple II
The Apple II was at the forefront of the computing revolution when it was released in 1977. Back in the day, nobody really bothered to plug the Apple II into a VGA monitor, but these days it's much easier than getting an original monitor. The V2 Analog is a useful tool that will let you do just that, plus a few other neat tricks, too.
As demonstrated on Youtube by [Adrian's Digital Basement], the V2 Analog is essentially a plug-in video card for the Apple II, II+ and IIe. It is based on the AppleII-VGA, which uses a Raspberry Pi Pico to spy on the 6502 CPU bus and copy video memory. It then outputs a high-quality VGA signal that's much nicer than the usual composite output options.
As a bonus, the V2 Analog can be reconfigured to work as an emulated AppliCard Z80 expansion card instead. This board was originally intended to allow Apple II users to run CP/M applications. The V2 Analog does an excellent job in this role, but it should be noted that it cannot handle VGA output and Z80 emulation at the same time.
Project files are available on Github for the curious. The Apple II may have been out of production for a long time, but it's certainly not forgotten. Video after the break.
The Apple II was at the forefront of the computing revolution when it was released in 1977. Back in the day, nobody really bothered to plug the Apple II into a VGA monitor, but these days it's much easier than getting an original monitor. The V2 Analog is a useful tool that will let you do just that, plus a few other neat tricks, too.
As demonstrated on Youtube by [Adrian's Digital Basement], the V2 Analog is essentially a plug-in video card for the Apple II, II+ and IIe. It is based on the AppleII-VGA, which uses a Raspberry Pi Pico to spy on the 6502 CPU bus and copy video memory. It then outputs a high-quality VGA signal that's much nicer than the usual composite output options.
As a bonus, the V2 Analog can be reconfigured to work as an emulated AppliCard Z80 expansion card instead. This board was originally intended to allow Apple II users to run CP/M applications. The V2 Analog does an excellent job in this role, but it should be noted that it cannot handle VGA output and Z80 emulation at the same time.
Project files are available on Github for the curious. The Apple II may have been out of production for a long time, but it's certainly not forgotten. Video after the break.
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