49 replies to this topic

[batari]

sermajic, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 10:28 AM, said:

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.

[sermajic]

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 by sermajic, Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:45 PM.

[Random Terrain]

Can you provide a link to a web site where you can buy a computer chip for a few cents?

[batari]

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.

[sermajic]

batari, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:50 PM, said:

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

[batari]

sermajic, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:59 PM, said:

batari, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:50 PM, said:

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.

[sermajic]

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...

[thebiggw]

sermajic, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:41 PM, said:

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 by thebiggw, Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:32 PM.

[sermajic]

You stole my thoughts!

[Andrew Davie]

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.

[Dino]

sermajic, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:59 PM, said:

batari, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:50 PM, said:

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  

[Nukey Shay]

Andrew Davie, on Wed Jul 20, 2011 8:33 AM, said:

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!

[Pioneer4x4]

maiki, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:56 AM, said:

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.

[Schizophretard]

sermajic, on Sun Jul 17, 2011 6:40 AM, said:

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.

[SmileyDude]

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!

[fernando marrin]

Hope H2 won't have the same constrains / tight limitations of good old Harmony Cart...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

As far as I can tell, the ROM for Boulder Dash will definitely never become available.

[fernando marrin]

But more and more games won't run...

Let's hope H2 will be more powerfull

[Dino]

fernando marrin, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:29 PM, said:

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

[Miss 2600]

I'll admit, the fact that I couldn't play the game on Harm

Thomas Jentzsch, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:17 AM, said:

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

[fernando marrin]

Dino, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:12 PM, said:

fernando marrin, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:29 PM, said:

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 by fernando marrin, Tue Apr 17, 2012 1:19 PM.

[HatNJ]

fernando marrin, on Tue Apr 17, 2012 1:18 PM, said:

Dino, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:12 PM, said:

fernando marrin, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:29 PM, said:

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?

[Amstari]

fernando marrin, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:29 PM, said:

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.

[KevinMos3]

Amstari, on Wed Apr 18, 2012 5:39 AM, said:

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!

[Nathan Strum]

It sort-of makes breakfast. I've sliced bananas for my cereal with it many times.