+batari Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 And what is really the doubled cost of the board? Cents... This wasn't a matter of penny-pinching. At the time, there were very few MCUs suitable for Harmony. The one we chose was the only one fast enough to work and cheap enough so it could be used for Melody boards (which I do not profit on.) With any project, economy of scale keeps costs down, so the ability to produce a board that would work as Melody and as a base to create Harmony worked together to keep costs reasonable. As said, there were some chips that had more memory but were too slow. There were faster chips with enough memory but these cost 5-10 times more (and this is no exaggeration.) There are several ways to design a multicart and I could have used one of these chips, or used a conventional hardware approach like the Kroko cart and it could play BD, but chances are it would have cost twice what Harmony does (at the time.) Since Harmony was designed, there are new chips out, one of which will be used in H2 (and will play BD with no problem) but this chip costs four times what Harmony's chip does, and as such no "7800 Melody" will be made, and these will be purchased and produced in small quantities, which increases prices more. I've done as much future-proofing as is reasonable with H2 but someone may inevitably create something that it doesn't like either. Even these old consoles are a moving target these days and you have to stop somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sermajic Posted July 17, 2011 Author Share Posted July 17, 2011 (edited) You have explained it all before, and i partially agree, but 5 times a few cents are still cents... Just hope we don't see the same mistakes on H2, it would be a shame seeing games not working on it a few months after its out Still think, Yes , Batari is God and walks over water!! Edited July 17, 2011 by sermajic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 Can you provide a link to a web site where you can buy a computer chip for a few cents? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 These MCUs don't cost pennies, if they did there would be no question. As I said before, I put up five figures of my own money into Harmony, and more than half of that was the MCU chips alone. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sermajic Posted July 17, 2011 Author Share Posted July 17, 2011 These MCUs don't cost pennies, if they did there would be no question. As I said before, I put up five figures of my own money into Harmony, and more than half of that was the MCU chips alone. I didn't say pennies literally, though if Harmony de luxe version was 129+ uss, and included reasonable specs, It would have sold the same Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 These MCUs don't cost pennies, if they did there would be no question. As I said before, I put up five figures of my own money into Harmony, and more than half of that was the MCU chips alone. I didn't say pennies literally, though if Harmony de luxe version was 129+ uss, and included reasonable specs, It would have sold the same If there were a code-compatible and pin-compatible chip that we could have used, I probably would have done that, but there wasn't any. I think a $129 price point is too high, though. H2 will have these specs you're after will be less than that if all goes as planned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sermajic Posted July 17, 2011 Author Share Posted July 17, 2011 That's awesome But If you look at how many atarimax carts were sold at that price point for even less popular systems You will see many of us will pay top dollar for quality specs, At least the ones that bought you the "deluxe" version. Maybe making H2 compatible with larger games on an actual 2600? It woul be a shame having to take out the 7800 to play the latest-bigger 2600 games... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiggw Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 (edited) You have explained it all before, and i partially agree, but 5 times a few cents are still cents... Just hope we don't see the same mistakes on H2, it would be a shame seeing games not working on it a few months after its out Still think, Yes , Batari is God and walks over water!! Maybe you should fund the entire next project to decide what is or isn't pennies...... Then give us your hard work for free. Edited July 17, 2011 by thebiggw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sermajic Posted July 17, 2011 Author Share Posted July 17, 2011 You stole my thoughts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Any criticism of Harmony because it doesn't run a game released AFTER it was released... is misguided, IMHO. Let's put it another way; when H2 comes along, I'll be sure to release a game which it will not run. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dino Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 These MCUs don't cost pennies, if they did there would be no question. As I said before, I put up five figures of my own money into Harmony, and more than half of that was the MCU chips alone. I didn't say pennies literally, though if Harmony de luxe version was 129+ uss, and included reasonable specs, It would have sold the same Since you seem to be made of money, I'll sell you my Krokodile cart for $500 and you can play BD all you like Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Let's put it another way; when H2 comes along, I'll be sure to release a game which it will not run.+100 if it were possible It's Atari's short-sightedness that led to these problems in the first place. I won't be buying a VCS from them any time soon...lemme tell ya! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pioneer4x4 Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Harmony Cartridge memory: 8 kB SRAM, 32 kB FLASH, 512 kB EEPROM... I guess 512k is for the firmware, 32k for the rom and 8k for the RAM... Boulder Dash is using 16 kB of RAM so unless he upgrades the hardware no Boulder Dash on Harmony Cartridge! Those specs are still totally amazing to me. It has 64 TIMES as much RAM as the 2600 does, and what, still 4-16 times as much as any cart produced, ever. PLUS, the on board eeprom could hold approx HALF of the games ever made for it, and it can read SD cards, act as the core for dumping carts, and allow me to play every game ever released on a cart (that I know of). If I ONLY use it to play carts that I already have, not for any other reason, just as a convenience item to play and access every cart I legally already own without digging them out, it was well worth it to me. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schizophretard Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Don't get me wrong, i adore the product, But if batari offered a deluxe version,higher priced, Then we deserved more than the cable... ...even if we had to pay more You're looking at it backwards. The deluxe version is a low price and the standard version is a lower price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmileyDude Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 Batari -- what are you shooting for on the H2 release date? Not looking to hold you to anything, just curious. Will it be backwards compatible with the original Harmony? Or would it be better to have both of them around? I'm mainly interested in it for development purposes, not for playing old games, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernando marrin Posted April 15, 2012 Share Posted April 15, 2012 Hope H2 won't have the same constrains / tight limitations of good old Harmony Cart... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 As far as I can tell, the ROM for Boulder Dash will definitely never become available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernando marrin Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 But more and more games won't run... Let's hope H2 will be more powerfull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dino Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 But more and more games won't run... Let's hope H2 will be more powerfull Maybe that will force you to BUY them and reward the developer, rather than just playing them for free Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss 2600 Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 I'll admit, the fact that I couldn't play the game on Harm As far as I can tell, the ROM for Boulder Dash will definitely never become available. I'm glad I pre-paid for the cartridge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernando marrin Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 (edited) But more and more games won't run... Let's hope H2 will be more powerfull Maybe that will force you to BUY them and reward the developer, rather than just playing them for free already ordered BD on December, but it hurts having to go back to carts, once you have tried SD... Edited April 17, 2012 by fernando marrin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HatNJ Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 But more and more games won't run... Let's hope H2 will be more powerfull Maybe that will force you to BUY them and reward the developer, rather than just playing them for free already ordered BD on December, but it hurts having to go back to carts, once you have tried SD... How many more threads are you going to post complaints on the Harmony cart? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amstari Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 But more and more games won't run... Let's hope H2 will be more powerfull Sure, as homebrew programmers start using new tricks there will be some games that don't work on the Harmony cart. But there is still hundreds of games that do work on it. The Harmony cart is powerful enough for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinMos3 Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 The Harmony cart is powerful enough for me. I'm not so sure... with all the hubbub about how great the Harmony cart is, I tried fitting some bread into the SD slot to make toast. It didn't work. I was very disappointed. Next time, please make sure it will make breakfast! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 It sort-of makes breakfast. I've sliced bananas for my cereal with it many times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.