Upgrade Your Vintage Apple II Computer with a High-Definition Media Extension

Retro gaming enthusiasts can now connect their vintage Apple II computers with modern displays via the A2FPGA multicard. Developed by Ed Anuff and Josh Norrid, the multicard can capture and reroute Apple II audio and visual output to an HDMI cable. The A2FPGA is built on an open source project and available for purchase on ReActiveMicro.

Old school Apple II machines, including Apple IIe, Apple II+ and Apple IIgs, aren’t compatible with modern screens. The A2FPGA chip is compatible with all those models, outputs their audio and video to an HDMI display, regardless of the display mode in use. It bumps the default resolution up to 720 x 480 at 60Hz and doubles the available vertical lines.

A2FPGA has been built using an FPGA chip. This kind of modern dev chip allows engineers to retool it for older hardware. It also recreates the functionality of the Mockingboard soundboard. Apple II had sound by default, but it wasn’t that great. All it could do was make “pop” and “beep” sounds. To play actual music or sound effects on Apple II, you need a third party sound card. The Mockingboard was one of the more popular solutions. The A2FPGA emulates the Mockingboard and sends the audio output to the speakers on the connected HDMI device.

Synetix SuperSprite and Ciarcia EZ-Color were two third party cards that enabled higher resolution graphics and better colors on the Apple II systems. The A2FPGA can copy the functionality of these cards too.

The code it runs on is an open source project hosted on GitHub, so technically anyone could buy an FPGA module off Amazon and program their own Apple II multicard. It also means the prebuilt, preconfigured A2FPGA modules can be updated with new features (potentially emulating even more third party cards) and debugged. ReActiveMicro is the official vendor that the developers have chosen, which is selling these multicards for $200 a pop.

Source: ReActiveMicro

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