Olimex Launches the RP2040pc, a Low-Cost Raspberry Pi RP2040 Board for Eight-Bit Emulation

Bulgarian open hardware specialist Olimex has launched a new single-board computer targeting emulation of eight-bit microcomputers, powered by the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller: the RP2040pc.

"RP2040pc is [a] computer based on [the] RP2040 dual-core [Arm] Cortex-M0[+] from Raspberry Pi," explains Olimex founder Tsvetan Usunov of his latest design, "The Reload emulator written by Veselin Sladkov supports emulation of [the] Apple II, Apple IIe, and Oric Atmos. You can play all Total Replay games on it, and it supports USB flash drive, USB keyboards, and USB gamepads, while you can display the output to any TV with HDMI."

The single-board computer is, as Usunov says, built around Raspberry Pi's first-generation in-house microcontroller, the RP2040 — less powerful than its second-generation sibling the RP2350, but with two Arm Cortex-M0+ cores running at a stock 133MHz and 265kB of static RAM (SRAM) plenty fast enough to emulate MOS 6502-based eight-bit microcomputers like the Apple II and Oric Atmos.

The RP2040pc includes a generous 16MB of flash memory, an HDMI connector carrying a DVI signal suitable for any HDMI or DVI-D compatible monitor or TV< four full-size USB 2.0 ports, on-board stereo buzzers plus a 3.5mm audio jack, separate USB Type-C connectors for power and programming, and support for an optional lithium-polymer battery — plus general-purpose input/output (GPIO) connectivity on an "EXT1" connector and Olimex's in-house UEXT connector.

The RP2040pc is now available to order on the Olimex store at €15 (around $16). KiCad project files for the board are available on GitHub under the permissive MIT license.