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Does Harmony Have a Mobile Android App?


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The reason why I ask about a possible Harmony cart mobile app is the 2600+. 

 

It's my understanding that in developer mode, you can load up a ROM and play, but I can see some (like me) who aren't going to keep walking into my office PC to change games, and it's not practical to have my laptop out all the time. What I, and I would be many, have is a smartphone on hand almost 24/7. It would be cool to just leave the cable connected to a phone and power down the 2600+, "swap a cart" in a tap or two, then fire up the 2600+ again. Seems like that would be very streamlined and super quick, nearly emulating the effect of the multi-game menu of the normal Harmony operation.

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The single loading option is not how the Harmony usually works. Usually you have an SD cart with all your games (could be thousands) on it, organized like you prefer. So there is no need to use a PC anymore (unless you want to add more games or reorganized the cart).

 

Since the 2600+ works as a dumper with an emulator, this doesn't work anymore (yet?). Therefore the single loading. 

 

I doubt an app will ever come up, but one never knows.

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24 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

The single loading option is not how the Harmony usually works. Usually you have an SD cart with all your games (could be thousands) on it, organized like you prefer. So there is no need to use a PC anymore (unless you want to add more games or reorganized the cart).

 

Since the 2600+ works as a dumper with an emulator, this doesn't work anymore (yet?). Therefore the single loading. 

 

I doubt an app will ever come up, but one never knows.

Yeah, I own one so I am familiar with the normal operation with an SD card. It's too bad that there isn't a less cumbersome way of single loading roms onto it for use with the 2600+. It would be pretty slick to quickly single-load games onto it to mimic the normal operation.

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42 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Maybe the dumper can be improved, but I doubt Atari has much interest here. IMO the 2600+ is also meant as platform for selling new carts. A Harmony option would partially defeat that plan.

Why would Atari be involved in such a suggestion that I put forward? Do they own the Harmony cart? My assumption is that they don't, and if I'm right, then my suggestion has nothing to do with them. It's the Harmony software that would be a mobile app in such a scenario.

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1 hour ago, WishItWas1984 said:

Why would Atari be involved in such a suggestion that I put forward? Do they own the Harmony cart? My assumption is that they don't, and if I'm right, then my suggestion has nothing to do with them. It's the Harmony software that would be a mobile app in such a scenario.

So who should be interested to create such an app?

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2 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

So who should be interested to create such an app?

That would obviously be the person who wrote the existing program, but I don't see how that's relevant or on topic to anything I'm talking about. This post is me asking a question and sharing why I think it would be cool. That's it.

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I'm wondering: Do cellphones even allow native mobile apps access to communicate with the USB port?  That's essentially what is needed to do what you're asking for here.

 

 

This might also be something to ask @Al_Nafuur regarding the PlusCart... if you have and/or would be interested in going that route.

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21 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

I'm wondering: Do cellphones even allow native mobile apps access to communicate with the USB port?  That's essentially what is needed to do what you're asking for here.

 

 

This might also be something to ask @Al_Nafuur regarding the PlusCart... if you have and/or would be interested in going that route.

Interesting. I'm not a programmer so I don't know, but I admit I'm assuming bi-directionality simply because we can see the phone from a PC over USB. If Android apps can't see external memory/files over their USB connection, then my idea is dead in the water.

 

I was looking at other posts and saw Batari say you can simply name a game "autorom.bin" in the root of the Harmony's SD card to get the 2600+ to read it. So, never mind the whole mobile app idea. If an Android phone's file manager app can see OUT to the card over USB, then wouldn't it be possible to just have all games on the SD card root, named something like "autorom_GAME NAME.bin" with just one "autorom.bin", and with two simple file renames, "swap carts" on the 2600+?

 

Regarding the PlusCart, I do not own one.

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