Apple Preserves Emulator

The Apple Preserves Emulator connects your Apple II series or Mac to a world of software without hunting for working vintage floppy drives or aging media. Drop your disk images onto an SD card, plug in, and boot — the emulator presents them to your machine exactly as an original drive would.

Built around the RP2354B microcontroller and designed by an Apple II hardware enthusiast, it reproduces the real flux-level timing of vintage disks. That means it handles not just everyday software but copy-protected titles that trip up simpler emulators.

Apple Preserves automatically detects the machine class it's plugged into, so you can move it from machine to machine — a IIgs to a IIe to a Mac — without changing a single setting.

Available in two versions:

Cased — housed in an attractive and protective enclosure, ready to use and handle

Bare board — the exposed PCB in all its glory, for those who like to see the hardware at work, at a lower price

Compatible with:

Apple IIgs (ROM 01 and ROM 03)

Apple IIe

Apple IIc / IIc+

Apple II / II+

Macintosh (400K/800K era machines)

Connects via DB-19 or ribbon cable.

What it does:

Emulates up to two 5.25" floppy drives with authentic GCR flux timing

Reads disk images straight from a standard SD card — no PC needed to swap disks

Automatic host detection identifies which machine it's plugged into and adapts, no configuration required

Bluetooth companion app for Android and Windows 10+ — manage your images wirelessly

Addressable status LED for at-a-glance drive activity

Coming soon (free firmware updates):

3.5" drive emulation — up to two 800K drives

SmartPort emulation — up to eight devices

Supported image formats:

WOZ (including flux-timing tracks — ideal for copy-protected disks)

PO (ProDOS order)

DO (DOS order)

Under the hood:

Apple Preserves MCU board, built around the RP2354B

8 MB PSRAM for full-track flux buffering

SD card storage

Main logic runs from the 12V rail, lightening the load on 5V for heavily loaded systems

Layered hardware protection and diode-OR power design for safe connection to vintage machines

In the box:

Apple Preserves Emulator board

Enclosure (cased version only)

32 GB SD card

Two 20-pin ribbon cables

Sold separately: DB-19 to DB-25 cable