To quote David:

“If you haven’t seen GSport before, it is a derivative of Kent Dickey’s KEGS Apple IIgs emulator.  Virtual printer support from Chris Mason (now with plain text output!) and Uthernet emulation from Glenn Jones are the big-ticket improvements over that code base, along with other contributions gathered up from several other KEGS offshoots.”

New functionality:
*   Added text-based virtual printer output for all platforms
*   Added OSX drag/drop “installer” disk image (.dmg)
*   Disk images will automatically mount and boot when specified as the last argument on the command line, or when invoked from the Windows shell (file->open as GSport.exe)

Bug fixes:
*   Added sound libraries in Win32 binary, mistakenly omitted

Schmidt elaborates on what’s new:

“Startup on Windows was annoying to me, needing to run a batch file to set up the path.  So all the .DLLs moved to the main directory.  That had some interesting side-effects: it enable the “file->open as” action to start GSport, which in turn led to the notion of automatically mounting and booting any arbitrary image – no matter what it is.  So, 5-1/4″, 3-1/2″, and hard drive images can “just work” when double-clicked (after setting up the default shell behavior).

“Mac OSX now has a drag and drop install – from the DMG, just drag the GSport folder over to the Applications folder.  The binary is fatter now, with (fingers crossed) PPC and Intel binaries that may work all the way back to OSX 10.4.  No guarantees, but 10.5 and 10.6 are working for me on both architectures.”

You can find the new release here.

JACE, the Java Apple Computer Emulator has been updated.  Per Brendan Robert’s comp.sys.apple2 post:

1) Concurrent modification exceptions have been eradicated when you apply settings changes.  These used to kill the emulation when you used the config screen to tweak settings or change disks.  I am very happy to say it works correctly as it was intended to work from the get go.  You can even switch to the ][DB debugger rom in mid-session without a crash!  Also supported are changing out card assignments, though some software only detects on start so you might have to use a three-fingered salute anyway.

2) Frame generation is now cycle-perfect, so split screen modes work as expected

3) Other video generation controls are provided, so it is possible to slow down the scanner, or change where HBL is generated from.  This seems rather silly, but for some reason it is the only way to get certain things (floating bus rainbow example) to work for now (default settings are compatible)

4) It is also possible to beautifully render the money munchers title, just set the HBL x/y offsets to 0 and set the scan interval to 3.  I’m not sure why, but this is the only way I could get it to stop flickering madly, though I know it is not **correct** at all.

Download the latest build here.

From Bill Martens over at Call-A.P.P.L.E. comes the news that the FTA ActiveGS plugin Apple IIGS emulation system has been updated to version 3.5.750.  Primarily a maintenance release, this version addresses the following issues:

• [Firefox] Updated package for Firefox 9.0 and beyond
• [Chrome] Added icons
• [OSX/Safari] Restored Async Window refresh

Download ActiveGS here.

Mark. S Ressl has updated his OpenEmulator program to version 1.0.2.  The highlight of this release is, “1977 Apple II” support.  Here’s a short feature list:

• Emulates the 1977 Apple II
• Joystick/mouse support with programmable axis and button mapping, sensitivity, reversal, and joystick auto detection
• Supports PAL/NTSC video generation and crystal frequency (14.31818 MHz vs 14.25 MHz)
• Cycle-accurate video emulation
• Support for several character sets
• Emulates the floating bus
• Support of the Apple II cassette interface
• Support for Apple II revision 0 and 1 or later.
• Added the AppleColor Composite Monitor.

Download OpenEmulator 1.0.2 here.

Yohanes Nugroho has released WiiApple, an Apple IIe emulator for the Nintendo Wii video game console. You can download the emulator from his blog site (Tinyhack).

Eric “Sheppy” Shepherd has made available Sweet16 2.0 Public Beta 2, otherwise known as Sweet16 2.0b17. In the author’s own words, this new version of the popular Apple IIGS emulator for Mac OS X adds a ton of features, including Ethernet networking support for Marinetti, joystick support, improved graphics, a very handy debugger for Apple II programmers, and CD-ROM support. However, this version apparently does not work on PowerPC systems; an update will be along as soon as the fixed version is tested.

For more information, visit the Sweet16 Web page.

UPDATE: Sweet16 2.0b18 has been released, restoring PowerPC G4 and G5 (but not G3) support back in.