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The Epple ][ Emulator is most useful when properly configured. After downloading and installing the Epple ][ Program, some System ROM (demo or real), and optionally the peripheral card ROMs you want to use, you will need to configure the program. Configuring is concerned primarily with telling the program what peripheral cards to use, and where the ROM files are located (and what memory addresses to load them at).
epple2.conf
The default configuration file for the Epple ][ emulator is:
/etc/epple2/epple2.conf
For Windows, the file will be:
C:\Program Files\Epple2\etc\epple2\epple2.conf
The configuration file could be in a different location depending upon how the distribution package is built.
You can specify a different configuration file for the emulator to use by specifying its name as the argument when running the epple2 program.
The format of the configuration file is just lines of commands.
Comments begin with a hash # character, and continue to the end of the line.
Firmware
Firmware, commonly called ROM images or ROMs, will need to be loaded
into the emulated ROM areas of the emulated Apple
in order for it to be able to boot the emulated Apple machine.
The firmware available is described in this documentation.
Once the firmware image files are installed on your computer, you can use the import
command in the configuration file to load the image files into the emulator.
Peripheral Cards
Another primary concern for configuring the Epple ][ is the insertion of
peripheral cards into the Apple's slots. The most useful card is probably the
Disk ][ Controller card; you will need to insert one of these cards if you want
to be able to load floppy disk images into the emulated Apple. The various
types of cards available are described in the cards section.
You can use the slot command in the configuration file to insert
them into the Apple's slots.
Sample Configuration Files
There are a number of configuration files provided with the distribution for your convenience. They provide various common configurations of machines. You can use one of these files directly, by specifying its path as the argument to the program, or as a starting point for you own configuration file. These sample files are in the same location as the default +epple2.conf+ file.
The Epple ][ Emulator can actually be run without a configuration file at all. In this case, you will be able to power on the Apple and see the low-resolution graphics display showing random RAM data. The system will not run, because there is no firmware loaded, but the emulator will otherwise be functional.