Documentation

Everything the card does.

A working reference for the Appletini ONE. It grows as the firmware does — check back as new features land.

Overview

The Appletini ONE is a single peripheral card for the Apple II slot bus. An FPGA watches the bus every cycle and reconstructs, in real time, the machine’s video, memory and peripherals — then presents them through modern connectors: a digital display over HDMI, storage on an SD card, a network jack, and USB for input. Nothing about your Apple II is modified; the card simply provides, from one slot, what used to take a stack of separate boards.

Because the emulation is driven by the real bus rather than a software model, the results match the hardware being emulated at the cycle level — timing-sensitive demos, copy protection and raster tricks behave the way they do on the genuine articles.

Compatibility

The card presents itself to your machine as a fixed Enhanced Apple //e and works in any Apple II with expansion slots:

  • Apple II and Apple II+ (including the EuroPlus)
  • Apple //e, both unenhanced and enhanced, NTSC and PAL

Apple IIgs support is under active testing and not yet guaranteed.

Which slot? Any free slot works. The card does its own bus arbitration, so you don’t need a specific slot for video or storage the way period-correct cards often did.

In the box

Every order is the Appletini ONE card itself. Optional extras, priced separately, can be added to a reservation:

  • 12 V power supply
  • Mini-HDMI cable
  • SD card, preloaded with firmware and the demo disk
  • USB-C splitter cable with a mini keyboard

Getting started

With the machine powered off, seat the card in a free slot. Connect a display to the mini-HDMI port and an SD card if you have one. Power the machine on; the card initialises and mirrors your Apple II to the HDMI display. From there its on-screen configuration menu controls the rest.

The board carries its own connectors for everything it provides: mini-HDMI out, an Ethernet jack, USB-C, a 3.5 mm audio-out jack, a micro-SD slot, a reset button, and a DC power input.

Video

A per-cycle renderer reconstructs the Apple II picture exactly as the machine generates it and outputs it as a clean digital signal over HDMI. Both NTSC and PAL timing are reproduced faithfully, including the colour-fringing behaviour software relies on.

Super Hi-Res & SHR4

Beyond the standard text, lo-res, hi-res and double-hi-res modes, the card renders Super Hi-Res and the extended SHR4 family — including 3200-colour, RGGB, PAL256 and double (interlaced and page-flipped) modes — for artwork that goes well past what stock hardware could show.

SuperSprite

A virtual SuperSprite (TMS9918) overlays hardware sprites and its own graphics modes on top of Apple II video, composited into the same HDMI output.

Acceleration & memory

A virtual TransWarp-class accelerator runs the CPU well beyond 1 MHz — up to 35 MHz. Software that depends on exact timing keeps working: a 1 MHz lock and a video-sync mode let code slow to real speed exactly where it must, so raster effects and timing loops stay correct at any warp setting.

The card adds 8 MB of fast RAM to the machine, plus a separate 32 MB RAM disk for near-instant storage.

Sound

A virtual Phasor — a dual Mockingboard with stereo synthesis and speech — lives in the card and plays through the onboard 3.5 mm audio jack or mixed into the HDMI audio. If you own a real Mockingboard or Phasor, it keeps working alongside the virtual one.

Storage

The card provides storage several ways at once:

  • SmartPort hard-disk volumes from the SD card, bootable
  • Disk II emulation with true WOZ support, for bit-accurate copy-protected disks as well as DSK/PO/DO images
  • A 32 MB RAM disk for fast scratch space

Networking

A virtual Uthernet II connects your Apple II to a real network through the onboard RJ45 jack, speaking standard TCP/IP. The bundled demo disk includes a text web browser and an image viewer that streams pictures from the internet straight into Super Hi-Res.

Input

Plug a USB-C mouse into the card and it appears to software as a genuine Apple mouse card — no AppleMouse hardware required. A mini keyboard can share the same port through the optional splitter cable.

Z80 Applicard

A virtual Applicard puts a Z80 in the slot, running CP/M software at up to 80 MHz — decades of business and development software, far faster than the original card managed.

Configuration

An on-screen configuration menu, shown over HDMI, controls every feature: which peripherals are virtual, acceleration speed, video options, audio, storage mounts and input bindings. Settings are saved to the SD card as profiles, so the card comes back the way you left it.

Firmware updates

The Appletini ONE is fully field-updatable. New firmware is installed from the SD card, and a protected “golden” recovery path over USB means a bad update can always be recovered. As the firmware improves — new video modes, broader compatibility, IIgs work — your card improves with it.

Demo disk

The card ships with a bootable demo disk that shows off what it can do, including:

  • A raster-bar demo that stays locked at any acceleration speed
  • A side-by-side 1 MHz-versus-warp speed test
  • A Super Hi-Res image viewer
  • A text web browser and an internet image viewer over Ethernet

FAQ

Does it modify my Apple II?

No. It sits in a slot like any other card and reads the bus. Remove it and your machine is exactly as it was.

Do I still need a monitor?

You need an HDMI display for the card’s output. Your original composite or RGB monitor keeps working independently.

Can I use my real sound or mouse cards too?

Yes. Real Mockingboard/Phasor and mouse cards run alongside the virtual ones.

When does it ship?

Shipping starts September 2026, in small first-come batches. Reserve to hold your place.