Getting Elevator Agent to run on Harmony Encore

[Taslim]

Is there a firmware that will allow Champ Game's Elevator Agent to run on the Harmony Encore ? I have rev v1.06 and it won't run, just hangs on what looks the Microsoft Internet Explore logo.

[John Stamos Mullet]

17 minutes ago, Taslim said:

Is there a firmware that will allow Champ Game's Elevator Agent to run on the Harmony Encore ? I have rev v1.06 and it won't run, just hangs on what looks the Microsoft Internet Explore logo.

No.

[+wavemotion]

It will not run currently. While the Encore does handle > 32K roms via a plethora of supported bank switching techniques, it does not support > 32K of ARM code which is what we have on cutting-edge games like Turbo Arcade and Elevator Agent.
 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

IIRC @batari is working on an update here.

[Taslim]

On 5/14/2024 at 3:16 PM, wavemotion said:

It will not run currently. While the Encore does handle > 32K roms via a plethora of supported bank switching techniques, it does not support > 32K of ARM code which is what we have on cutting-edge games like Turbo Arcade and Elevator Agent.
 

I thought the Harmony Encore had a ARM Processor in it and that is what it uses for bank switching.

[+wavemotion]

16 minutes ago, Taslim said:

I thought the Harmony Encore had a ARM Processor in it and that is what it uses for bank switching.

It does... but for the 6502 (Atari side) it only has to present 4K at at a time... it's the ARM side that is currently unable to support more than 32K of ARM code needed for TA and EA.

[+SpiceWare]

23 hours ago, Taslim said:

I thought the Harmony Encore had a ARM Processor in it and that is what it uses for bank switching.

 

For most bank switching schemes the ARM runs a driver that emulates the hardware that was used to implement the bank switching scheme.

 

For some schemes it also acts as a coprocessor, an example of which is DPC that was used it Pitfall II. Here's some topics about DPC:

 

• How exactly does the Pitfall 2 DPC work? - specifically replies by @batari
• DPC Music demo by @cd-w
• DPC Sprite Demo by me

 

When the Harmony emulates the DPC driver there are a lot of unused resources. Back in 2010, after posting the above demos, we decided to expand DPC into DPC+ so we could utilize those resources:

 

 

 

We also added the ability of run custom ARM code.

 

 

 

The Melody board is basically a Harmony Cart without the USB and SD slot. It's used to build stand-along games, including those that utilize DPC+.

 

Over time as we learned things we came up with new custom bank switch schemes for the Harmony/Melody: BUS, CDF, and CDFJ.  

 

Elevator Agent uses the newest scheme, CDFJ+, which expands the memory size from 32K to 64, 128, 256, and even 512K  A new Melody board with more ROM/RAM is used for these larger games.

 

Unfortunately the memory layout of the Harmony Encore is not the same as the new Melody board, so the Encore only supports 32K BUS/CDF/CDFJ/CDFJ+ games.  Elevator Agent is a 64K CDFJ+ game.

 

 

[Taslim]

6 hours ago, SpiceWare said:

 

For most bank switching schemes the ARM runs a driver that emulates the hardware that was used to implement the bank switching scheme.

 

For some schemes it also acts as a coprocessor, an example of which is DPC that was used it Pitfall II. Here's some topics about DPC:

 

• How exactly does the Pitfall 2 DPC work? - specifically replies by @batari
• DPC Music demo by @cd-w
• DPC Sprite Demo by me

 

When the Harmony emulates the DPC driver there are a lot of unused resources. Back in 2010, after posting the above demos, we decided to expand DPC into DPC+ so we could utilize those resources:

 

 

 

We also added the ability of run custom ARM code.

 

 

 

The Melody board is basically a Harmony Cart without the USB and SD slot. It's used to build stand-along games, including those that utilize DPC+.

 

Over time as we learned things we came up with new custom bank switch schemes for the Harmony/Melody: BUS, CDF, and CDFJ.  

 

Elevator Agent uses the newest scheme, CDFJ+, which expands the memory size from 32K to 64, 128, 256, and even 512K  A new Melody board with more ROM/RAM is used for these larger games.

 

Unfortunately the memory layout of the Harmony Encore is not the same as the new Melody board, so the Encore only supports 32K BUS/CDF/CDFJ/CDFJ+ games.  Elevator Agent is a 64K CDFJ+ game.

 

 

So this means I'll never be able to play Elevator Agent unless a new flash cart comes out that supports the New Melody Board it uses or I purchase the actual cartridge? 

 

[+SpiceWare]

16 hours ago, Taslim said:

So this means I'll never be able to play Elevator Agent unless a new flash cart comes out that supports the New Melody Board it uses or I purchase the actual cartridge? 

 

@batari is working on Harmony Enhancement Modules, which are targeted to start at $20 and will add support to the Harmony for larger CDFJ+ games like Elevator Agent.

 

 

Do note that Elevator Agent is referred to as Elevator Action in that topic because it was originally going to use that name.  You can see that in this @ZeroPage Homebrew livestream, it should start at 1:18:20