MacEffects is proud to be an authorized distributor of the A2Pico2 Card.
Offered exclusively in MacEffects red. This card is made for us on our own red PCB, so it is not the board you will find anywhere else.
The A2Pico2 is one card that can be many cards. Pick a firmware and it becomes mass storage, a Super Serial Card, a mouse interface, a Z80 Appli-Card for CP/M, or something you write yourself. Change your mind later and reflash it in about thirty seconds.
Where earlier A2Pico cards needed bus transceivers and an array of support chips, the A2Pico2 is built around the Raspberry Pi RP2354B. The processor is 5V tolerant and drives the Apple II bus directly, so the whole card comes down to one processor, one logic gate and a regulator. Fewer parts, less to go wrong, and the best USB capability of any card in the A2Pico line.
Firmware
Choose your firmware at checkout and we load it before the card ships:
- A2retroNET (SD storage and Super Serial Card): SmartPort mass storage plus SSC emulation in the same slot, so you don't give up a second slot for serial.
- A2retroNET (SD storage and USB storage): SmartPort mass storage from a microSD card, a USB thumb drive, or both. Thumb drives are hot-pluggable and faster to read.
- SoftSP
- Apple2-IO-RPi
- Apple II Pi
- Appli-Card for Z80 and CP/M support
- Super Serial Card
- Mouse emulation
- Brutal Timer
Every one of these is open source, and the card's architecture is documented if you would rather write your own. Reflashing is foolproof: hold BOOTSEL, plug the card into a PC or Mac, and it mounts as a drive. Drag the .uf2 file across and you're done. No programmer and no JTAG.
Mass storage
With either A2retroNET firmware, the card gives your Apple II up to eight SmartPort drives using ProDOS block images of up to 32 MB in the usual .hdv, .po and .2mg formats. Drives are assigned in a plain text file on the storage device, so there is no setup disk and nothing to install on the Apple II.
Hardware
- Raspberry Pi RP2354B processor with 2 MB of on-chip flash and a 12 MHz reference crystal.
- Push-push microSD card slot and a USB-C port.
- REBOOT and BOOTSEL buttons, a status LED, a USB power jumper, and a serial header (TX, RX, RTS, CTS, GND).
- A single SN74LVC1G11 AND gate and an ME6211 regulator; no transceivers and no programmable logic.
- Resettable 500 mA fuse on the slot power rail.
- Card size 2.625 × 1.5 × 0.25 in, on an exclusive MacEffects red PCB.
- Revision 1.2, the current design. Concept by Glenn Jones and Oliver Schmidt, firmware by Oliver Schmidt, hardware design by Ralle Palaveev. Open hardware under the MIT license.
Compatibility
A universal peripheral card for the Apple ][, ][ Plus, //e and IIGS. Install it in the appropriate slot for the firmware you have chosen.
Notes
If you plan to use USB devices, and especially the mouse firmware, an external USB port extension is recommended so the port is reachable from outside the case. Unpowered USB On-The-Go hubs have caused trouble with attached devices, mice in particular, so use a powered hub if you need one.
What's in the box
The assembled A2Pico2 v1.2 card on our exclusive red PCB, with your chosen firmware loaded. A microSD card is not included. If you need one, add our microSD card for $14 and you will have everything you need to start.
A2Pico2 is an open source, open hardware community project. Hardware files are at github.com/rallepalaveev/A2Pico2, the shared A2Pico software library and firmware list at github.com/oliverschmidt/a2pico, and the A2retroNET storage firmware at github.com/oliverschmidt/a2retronet.