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Home > Apple II Section > Apple IIe Card
 The Apple IIe Card is only compatible with computers that have the LC style processor direct slot (PDS) and do not require 32-bit addressing. You must turn off 32-bit addressing to use the card.
The Apple IIe Card is a PDS card that emulates an Apple IIe computer. It basically turns your Macintosh into a fully functional Apple IIe. All the functionality of an entire Apple IIe computer is built into a single card. Today, about the only compelling reason to use an Apple IIe Card would be to transform Apple IIe software from disk image format into real 5.25" floppies for use in a real Apple IIe. You can find more information on this subject in the article "How to get software off the Internet to run in a real Apple II", available on this site. The Apple IIe Card can also be used as originally intended, to run the mammoth amount of software available for the Apple II line of computers without having to actually own an Apple IIe. Given the fact that an entire Apple IIe computer along with disk drives and a monitor could be assembled for less than $100, using a card to supplant a real Apple IIe is just not as compelling as it used to be. Back when the Apple IIe Card first came out, many schools were looking at updating their venerable Apple II computers with Macintosh. They had a substantial investment in Apple II software. The card helped to wing schools from their dependence on their antiquated Apple II computers while still having access to their once expensive and still valuable Apple II software. The Apple IIe Card seems tailored to fit with the Macintosh LC line that schools were buying early in the 1990's. It is even possible to use the card in a Macintosh LC with no internal hard drive. A new card can be purchased on eBay for about $10 to $14. The Apple IIe Card comes with a user manual, installation software, and a Y-shaped cable. The user manual is comprehensive and gives you all the knowledge necessary to install, configure, and use the card with little trouble. A used card can be had for $5 to $7 but this might not include the manual or installation software. A manual can be downloaded from Apple.com in PDF format (minus the nifty pictures of the original). The installation software is also available for free on Apple's website. The card fits snuggly in the PDS of my LC III. Installation requires the removal of the motherboard because the card must be seated before it will fit through the punched-out slot hole at the back of the chassis. The card cannot be seated until the board is removed because the back of the chassis gets in the way. The installation process takes about five minutes and can be performed by someone with little experience. Originally, Apple required the card to be installed by an Apple Certified Technician. Otherwise, the warranty is voided. Since these components are so old as to be "vintage", Apple no longer supports them making the warranty issue invalid. On the back end of the card, there is a connector to attach the split cable (Y-cable) that came with the card. The split cable has two connectors, one for a joystick and the other for a disk drive. The disk drive must be an Apple 5.25" drive or a UniDisk 3.5" drive. The Apple IIe Card can also use the internal 1.4 MB drive and part of your internal hard drive. In order to use the internal hard drive, you have to set up a ProDOS partition. If you wish to use your hard drive to store Apple II programs, you will have to format your hard drive with a ProDOS partition before you install the Apple IIe Card software. My LC III has an 80 MB hard drive partitioned with a 10 MB ProDOS partition and a 70 MB Macintosh 7.5.5 partition. Apple HD Setup, available with MacOS and with the Apple IIe Card installation software, can format your hard drive with a MacOS and ProDOS partition. This will erase the current contents of the hard drive, so take the appropriate steps to back up anything you don't want to lose. I would suggest using no more than 10 MB for the ProDOS partition. The Apple IIe Card manual calls this setup "Maximum Macintosh." This is a huge amount of space for an Apple IIe. Besides, since MacOS supports drag and drop, you can easily drag files to an external ProDOS-formatted 3.5" floppy disk if you run out of space. I would avoid storing anything Apple II on the MacOS side of the partition. It is easy to corrupt Apple II programs with a MacOS resource fork. Without the fork, Apple II files tend to tear up your MacOS hard drive or otherwise cause Norton Utilities and Apple Disk First Aid to register all kinds of funny errors that they want you to fix. Don't allow any MacOS utilities to work on any Apple II programs. This will destroy them. You should run these utilities after you do any conversion as explained in "How to get software off the Internet to run in a real Apple II". You may find that Norton has some work to do. Don't worry too much about anything held in OS X. OS X is much more robust. The safest way to store Apple II programs in any MacOS environment is in disk image format. Once you have tackled the hard drive issue, it is time to install the Apple IIe Card software. Do an easy install on the MacOS partition. Without this software, MacOS will not be able to recognize the ProDOS partition. It is basically the same software that allows MacOS to read or format ProDOS floppies. The software installs the ProDOS File System extension (140K). The installer also places BASIC.SYSTEM, PRODOS, and IIe Startup on your hard drive. After restarting the computer, you will notice that you now have an Apple IIe hard drive icon on the desktop. You should drag BASIC.SYSTEM and PRODOS to this new partition. This is the Apple IIe operating system or for lack of a better term, System folders. Without them, you cannot use ProDOS and the functionality built into BASIC.SYSTEM.
To run the emulator, you can double click Apple IIe Startup or double click the PRODOS file on the ProDOS partition. Double clicking the PRODOS file is the easiest way to start the emulator. Apple IIe Startup will automatically be activated. The neat thing about the PRODOS file startup method is that you can start the emulator from an external 3.5" floppy by double clicking the PRODOS file. This will automatically set the startup disk as the internal 3.5" floppy. This eliminates the need to change the prefix or otherwise have to navigate through text line commands. Frankly, I put my 3.5" floppies in the LC III (running the MacOS partition) to organize files by drag and drop. It is so much easier than having to use ProDOS text line commands. The card takes over control of the computer when it is activated. Press Control-Apple-Escape to get back to the MacOS side. DO NOT PRESS Option-Apple-Escape. This will initiate a force quit of the emulator. Select 'Cancel' if you do this by mistake. The Option key is right next to the Control key, which makes this mistake almost inevitable. If you do force quit the emulator, it will more than likely crash the computer. After pressing Control-Apple-Escape, the emulator goes back to the MacOS desktop and opens the IIe Option Panel. You can select 'Quit IIe' from there. The Apple IIe Card is configured through the IIe Option Panel. From the IIe Option Panel, you can create a super Apple IIe that Woz could only dream of circa 1980. It is important to know the slots. Be careful not to erase the hard drive slot (for my computer it is Slot 5, D2). I did this most easily using Copy II Plus. The Apple II is an unforgiving machine. When I quit the emulator, I was shocked to see my ProDOS partition destroyed along with all the files. Restarting the computer enacted Apple HD Setup. MacOS couldn't recognize the partition and asked me to initialize it. I formatted it again in ProDOS. This process is similar to initializing a floppy that MacOS cannot recognize. As you can see, games simply do not look like the way they do on a real Apple IIe. The problem of "color-blast" is all too clear on a high-resolution monitor. Apple IIe games were designed to run on a composite monitor. That is why I insist on using a real Apple IIe to run real Apple II software.  Ms Pac Man clearly showing the effects of "color-blast"  An Apple IIe Catalog on an LC III The Apple IIe Card is a great companion for your older PDS capable Mac. For pennies, you can have access to all those wonderful Apple II programs you used during the rocking 80's. Most of these games are now available for free on the Internet. For those who love technical challenges, this is great way to give your old 68K Mac new functionality and expand your software collection to new heights. Over 10,000 commercially available programs were available during the Apple II's long history. So go out and get an Apple IIe Card! January 25, 2004: June 13, 2003: I enjoyed your IIe card web page. I used to run one in my LCIII and later in my LC475 for several years. I also helped install and got several people with a IIe card up and running. I note a few misconceptions in your write up you might want to check. 1) It is not necessary to remove the motherboard (at least from LC "pizza box" machines). A little care is needed to press the rear connector (on the card) against the rear panel prior the pressing down on the PDS connector. Vectronic: 2) You should practice EDS (static) control while handling the IIe card outside of the machine. When installing the card, leave the machine plugged in but TURNED OFF, and touch the power supply shield prior to handling or installing the card. Or better yet, use a wrist strap. 3) You CAN use an external 3.5" drive but there are several things to note:
Other things you might want to mention are:
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