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Are you going to buy a Harmony cart for the Atari 2600?


The Harmony Cartridge  

262 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you going to buy a Harmony cart?

    • Yes!
      186
    • No.
      11
    • Maybe, if it doesn
      65

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Same here. If it will be around $50, I'll definitely get one. Please add me too!

By the way: Does it support ALL the Atari 2600 games? And i am in the PAL zone, hope thats ok with it.

Thanks,

Best regards.

Edited by deksar
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If there is a preorder list, put me down. As I said, I'd love to play my 2600 again.

 

Does the Harmony cart have an option, if only one game is loaded, that it'll boot like a normal cartridge?

 

Oh I almost forgot. I'd gladly buy a limited version, knowing it does cost more. I really miss playing my Atari.

Edited by keilbaca
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If there is a preorder list, put me down. As I said, I'd love to play my 2600 again.

 

Does the Harmony cart have an option, if only one game is loaded, that it'll boot like a normal cartridge?

 

Oh I almost forgot. I'd gladly buy a limited version, knowing it does cost more. I really miss playing my Atari.

The multicart BIOS allows you to put one game on the SD card, and it will automatically boot that game. It won't boot quite like a normal cartridge as you'll see the spinner for a second or two while the game is loading from SD.

 

You can make it operate like a normal cartridge if you program the game directly to the board through the USB port. This option does not require an SD card at all. This is the avenue that developers will probably take, as it's a little easier than swapping the SD card, and you can leave the cart plugged into your console and USB cable plugged into the cart.

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If there is a preorder list, put me down. As I said, I'd love to play my 2600 again.

 

Does the Harmony cart have an option, if only one game is loaded, that it'll boot like a normal cartridge?

 

Oh I almost forgot. I'd gladly buy a limited version, knowing it does cost more. I really miss playing my Atari.

The multicart BIOS allows you to put one game on the SD card, and it will automatically boot that game. It won't boot quite like a normal cartridge as you'll see the spinner for a second or two while the game is loading from SD.

 

You can make it operate like a normal cartridge if you program the game directly to the board through the USB port. This option does not require an SD card at all. This is the avenue that developers will probably take, as it's a little easier than swapping the SD card, and you can leave the cart plugged into your console and USB cable plugged into the cart.

 

That is *exactly* what I wanted to know. Thank you so much!

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You can make it operate like a normal cartridge if you program the game directly to the board through the USB port. This option does not require an SD card at all. This is the avenue that developers will probably take, as it's a little easier than swapping the SD card, and you can leave the cart plugged into your console and USB cable plugged into the cart.

Can you program a multicart image directly to the board without using the SD card at all (like on the Kroc cart)?

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You can make it operate like a normal cartridge if you program the game directly to the board through the USB port. This option does not require an SD card at all. This is the avenue that developers will probably take, as it's a little easier than swapping the SD card, and you can leave the cart plugged into your console and USB cable plugged into the cart.

Can you program a multicart image directly to the board without using the SD card at all (like on the Kroc cart)?

It's not yet possible to program the 4 MB onboard EEPROM through USB, which is where you'd put multiple games. You can program the 32k onboard flash with single games via USB, but currently you program the 4 MB EEPROM by placing a file on the SD card as it is significantly faster.

 

The board has a USB-to-serial chip so it is actually programming at serial port speed like the Kroko cart. Programming the 32k flash at serial port speed is fast enough, but programming 4 MB would be kind of slow (note that 4 MB is 8x the space of the Kroko cart, so multiply programming times by 8 to get a feel for the speed, provided you can program at the same speed, 115200 bps.)

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It's not yet possible to program the 4 MB onboard EEPROM through USB, which is where you'd put multiple games. You can program the 32k onboard flash with single games via USB, but currently you program the 4 MB EEPROM by placing a file on the SD card as it is significantly faster.

Well, one game is better than none. I don't have an SD card reader.

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I might well get shot down for this, but how about taking pre-orders to help cover manufacturing costs, say $20 or $30?

 

That way people who are really interested are sure to get their carts from the first run, and you'll have a better idea for the size of that first manufacturing run.

 

I'm definitely in for at least one. If the price is ~$50, I'll probably get two.

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This is a work in progress. I don't think I have seen a prototype... so vaporware at the moment. There's a ways to go. Give me an RTM version, then we can talk pre-orders.

 

Rom Hunter's collection of 2600 rom files is around 11 MB. So I think all we need is 100 MB of storage on this thing.

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