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I would tend to agree. Without knowing whether or not it works, they're potentially paying a lot to ship a giant paper weight. Building a power supply for it doesn't seem like it would be too hard. It'll be coming up with a compatible connector.

You can get cable/connection info here:

Yeah, I mean, in this day and age, most software has been patched to work with different versions of TOS and/or hard drives, but that wasn't the case back in the day.

I would think that there has to be a way. Otherwise, how would HD system owners have loaded games like Dungeon Master and others that auto loaded at boot?

OK, unless I miscounted, that's all of my supplies accounted for. For those that asked for a kit, hopefully I'll be able to get those out this afternoon or tomorrow after work, depending on when I receive payment. For those that asked for an assembled cart, I should be able to get them soldered up, boxed, and ready to go this weekend, and shipped out after work on Monday or Tuesday. Thanks to everyone!

Wow! That didn't take long! I'm officially down to one full kit left. It looks like I'll be doing a little bit of soldering this weekend.

I didn't think to mention that the shipping is U.S. based. I could look into shipping internationally if someone wanted, but the prices would change accordingly to whatever shipping method we decided upon.

I received the supplies I ordered to make one of Robin's (electrotrains) A8-PicoCarts. There were minimum orders involved, so I have more boards and supplies than I really need for mine, and I've sold three others, so I'll be glad to sell the remaining six for not much more than cost plus shipping if anyone is interested. If anyone is interested in buying the parts and building their own, I'll be glad to sell the parts. Otherwise, I'll be glad to assemble a complete caseless cart and you can use it that way or could provide your own case. I just ordered a case for mine through Craftcloud for $20. The prices for the individual components are: Pico Clone board $3 PCB $4 Switch $2 Whole thing $9 total, you assemble it yourself. The price for an assembled cart is $15 Priority Shipping, small flat-rate box $11 So, $20 for everything you need to assemble your own, or $26 for an assembled, ready to use cart. PM if you're interested in purchasing one or more. For those unfamiliar with the project, it's just a cool little project and makes for a fairly cheap multi-cart. If you have or want an AVGCart, an UltimateCart, or a Side2 or Side3, this isn't going to replace one of those. It's just a cool little project designed by electrotrains, of UnoCart and UltimateCart fame, that I wanted to build for cheap and would give me a cheap extra cart to have beside my UltimateCart and my Side3. It consists of a PCB a Raspberry Pi Pico clone board and a momentary microswitch. If you want to learn more, you can check out the thread or look at the GitHub page. For those familiar with the project, this is the original PCB as published, not the redesigned PCB that has the Pico clone upside down so that you can't plug it into USB at the same time that it's plugged into your Atari. Doing so would damage your Atari and void its warranty! Please keep this in mind when considering. https://github.com/robinhedwards/A8PicoCart

Yeah, I guess the particular ones I received either don't have LEDs or they're just not working. I've flashed two of them and nothing has lit or flashed on either of them.

OK, crisis averted. Once I had a valid copy of the firmware, my Pico clones flashed without issue, then unmounted and remounted as A8-PICOCART. Interestingly enough, there is no LED flashing at any point in the process, but it worked and I'm not overly concerned with whether or not there are LEDs or if they work or not. Thanks again to everyone that offered suggestions and helped me work through my issue!

It looks like you were posting this as I was posting my reply. Yes, it looks like I had a bad download that was really just a bunch of html. I'll give it another try with the good file when I get home from work this afternoon, but I'm fairly certain we've found the issue. I always seem to have issues downloading files from Github for some reason. As far as the LED flashing, I've not seen an LED flash on one of mine yet. I'll see how they react when I try a good firmware file tonight and they really flash. Thanks again to everyone!

OK, I think I've finally figured it out. I have a bad download of Robin's firmware. When I look at yours in Notepad, I see a bunch of garbage ascii characters; no real text. When I look at Robin's I see html. It seems like I always have trouble downloading files from Github. I finally went back, clicked on the file itself, which opened in another view, then selected download raw file. Before I'd right-clicked and selected Save As. Anyway, Robin's looks more like yours now, so I'm sure it will work properly when get home tonight. Thanks for all the help guys! This is what makes this community great!

Yep, I see all that, and the a8_pico_cart.uf2 is showing there on the card afterwards, along with the original two files, but there is no flashing going on. I tried another Pico clone just out of the packaging but no luck. Surely I haven't gotten a whole bad batch. I mean they act right when I plug them in. They just won't flash. I'll have to keep researching and experimenting.

And I'd love to come up, but I have too much going on right now. Maybe when cooler weather hits and lawn work slows down a bit. How often do you guys meet? Thanks for the invite!

Well, I didn't drag and drop, and I didn't Send To. I copy/pasted, but that shouldn't make any difference, right? Is it really something as simple as that, and if so, why? Heck, I have ten of these bleedin' things. Push comes to shove, I'll try another one here in a bit; one I soldered on and messed with.

Well, a couple of things that make me think this isn't the case with me. One, I've used this cable extensively with my Nintendo Switch, moving data back and forth. Second, the firmware file actually appears to be on the Pico, at least until I unplug and plug it back in to my computer. It just never seems to install or update. It never remounts as an A8-PICOCART.

OK, I'm obviously missing something. Probably something really basic, but I can't seem to find out what it is. How the heck do I flash one of these Pico clones?! From everything I can find, I just hold down BOOTSEL while plugging the Pico clone into my PC via USB. I'm assuming that I continue to hold down the button, because I've not seen anything that says differently, and I copy the new firmware over to the "drive" that appears. The new firmware appears to be on the Pico but nothing ever reboots or seems to install. If I unplug the Pico then plug it back in, the firmware file is gone and I'm back to just the INDEX.HTM and INFO_UF2.TXT files. I'm really not sure what I should be seeing. The procedures I found kept mentioning blinking lights after the firmware is flashed, but I get nothing. Would someone please tell me what utterly simple step I'm missing? Thanks. EDIT: I finally found Robin's instructions on the Github, and I'm following everything step-by-step. My Pico just never remounts as A8-PICOCART like the instructions say that it should. I've tried it holding down the BOOTSEL button the whole time and I've tried it by only holding it down while connecting to my PC, then letting go and following the steps. Neither seems to work. It seems like it should be so simple and it just isn't working. I'm about to start pulling my hair out!

You're just a tad bit late to the game, but really, that's good new for you. Go to this thread and read the posts from August 2023 on.

This is excellent! Of course, all 24 original Z3 games were already released on the 8-bit, but not necessarily the final versions with bug fixes, etc., so it will be nice to be able to make new atrs with the most recent versions of the story files. Also, it'll be nice to be able to make atrs for the z4 & z5 games that were never released, assuming that your machine is able to take advantage of them, not to mention any good homebrew IF released since in any format other than z6. Thank you so much!

Oh, that I do know, and that's the first thing I thought of when I saw it, but that wasn't my mistake. File Explorer reports 128MB, not 128Mb. It also shows over 134 million bytes, not bits, so I was correct that it is reporting it as 128 Megabytes. It's just misreporting it for some reason. Thanks for the explanation though @mytek. It certainly wouldn't be the first time I wasn't paying close attention and mistook Mb for MB, or vice versa.

Ok, according to a thread on a Raspberry Pi forum, it sounds like this is totally normal and doesn't mean I have 128MB of space after all. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=300884

OK, I just looked a little closer at my RP2040s. You guys were saying these were 16MB, and when I look back at my order, it says 16MB, but when I plug this into my PC it says 128MB. The description on AliExpress says "Ultimate Pico RP2040 128Mbit 16MB compatibl with raspberry PI dual-core processors". When I plug it in it's identified as RPI-RP2, says it's formatted in FAT and there's 127MB of 127MB free. Is this the right card, just with 128MB instead of 16MB? To me, the card looks identical. There were two files on it when I look at it with File Explorer; INDEX.HTM, which just takes me to the Raspberry Pi Documentation page, and INFO_UF2.TXT, the contents which I'll paste below: UF2 Bootloader v3.0 Model: Raspberry Pi RP2 Board-ID: RPI-RP2

My original A8PicoCart PCBs arrived from PCBWay today. I'd ordered ten but wound up with an extra one. I have enough boards, Pico clones and switches to make ten uncased A8PicoCarts. Anyone not wishing to order a lot of extra boards and supplies from China is welcome to PM me. You can easily print your own cases or have them printed and mailed to you from an online printer like I'll do. After mine, I'll have enough stuff to make nine extra full carts, plus an extra PCB. I'll be glad to work out pricing for component cost and shipping. Just PM me, don't reply to this thread.

I'm sure users will respond back here soon with the results. Thank you @drac030 for helping with this!

Well, my Pico clone cards and switches arrived. Now I just need to wait for my PCBs to get here.