PiRTOII cart

PiRTO II

PiRTO II if a flash multicart for the Mattel Intellivision based on the Raspberry Pico.

Summary

This is my variation on Andrea Ottaviani's PiRTO II flash multicart for the Mattel Intellivision.

My original goal was to adapt it in order to use original Pico boards, of which I had plenty. While studying the project I decided to introduce proper level shifting and a MicroSD card slot (since the original Pico has less flash space than the purple clones used in the original project). All of this eventually made the project very similar to Andrea's first version of the cart, of which I was unaware of the time, but it uses through-hole components and one less chip.

Usage

The Pico must be flashed with some firmware. You have a couple of choices:

• If you want to use Andrea's original firmware, you have to use the version from this page, which was changed to reflect the different pin mapping. Do NOT use the firmware from the original project, I will try to incorporate any upstream changes. This firmware has NO SUPPORT for the SD card slot.
• storm_walker has updated Andrea's firmware to support the SD card slot. You can get his version from the sd_support branch. As far as I'm aware, this version ONLY supports the SD card slot. Any ROMs stored in the Pico's flash memory will not be usable.
• Alternatively, you can use the Minty firmware from Gennaro Tortone, which supports this variant starting from version 1.2. This should support both ROMs from the Pico's flash memory and from the SD card.

For any other needs, please refer to the original project or to the AtariAge forum.

Assembly

This board was designed for the original Raspberry Pico board, so either use that or a clone that has the same pinout. It's your responsibility to ascertain that.

U2/3/4 MUST be 74LVC245. Do NOT get these from China, as they will likely be HC chips with just different (incorrect) markings. Rather get them from Mouser, Digikey, RS, etc.

Other BJTs will probably work for Q1, just make sure they have the same pinout.

JP1/2/3/4 are experimental jumpers and all of them except JP4 MUST be closed for the moment.

Releases

If you want to get this board produced, you are recommended to get the latest release rather than the current git version, as the latter might be under development and is not guaranteed to be working.

Every release is accompanied by its Bill Of Materials (BOM) file and any relevant notes about it, which you are recommended to read carefully.

License

Despite an effort to clear things up, the license status of Andrea's original board is unclear, so I don't really know what to do. I don't want to add or remove any limitations compared to the original project, so please get in touch with him before you use this project in any way.

Still, let me point out that this PiRTOII variation is provided to you ‘as is’ and without any express or implied warranties whatsoever with respect to its functionality, operability or use, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or infringement. We expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any direct, indirect, consequential, incidental or special damages, including, without limitation, lost revenues, lost profits, losses resulting from business interruption or loss of data, regardless of the form of action or legal theory under which the liability may be asserted, even if advised of the possibility or likelihood of such damages.

Support the Project

If you want to get some boards manufactured, you can get them from PCBWay through this link:

You get my gratitude and cheap, professionally-made and good quality PCBs, I get some credit that will help with this and other projects. You won't even have to worry about the various PCB options, it's all pre-configured for you!

Also, if you still have to register, you can use this link to get some bonus initial credit (and yield me some more).

You can also buy me a coffee if you want, all the money collected this way will actually go to charity:

Thanks

Of course, I would like to thank Andrea for his original project.