Harmony cart "THANK YOU!" thread

[classiccollector]

Just want to say Thank-you to whoever made the Harmony Cart, It is absolutely amazing. Although I love playing the actual carts this is a great way to keep my carts in prestine condition especially when other want to play games. I also want to throw in my support for the H2 for the 7800 and will be buying one of those when they become available. Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you

[+SabertoothRetro]

I am very stoked on my new Harmony Cartridge! I ordered late last week and it arrived today. Within minutes of loading my SD card I was up and running my childhood favorites. Everything looks great on my modded 7800. Thanks to Fred Quimby and anyone else involved in bringing this to market! \m/

[Lucky Man]

I just realized that I posted a couple of minor complaints in other threads, but never let you all know how much I'm enjoying my Harmony Cart. I love it! Thank you to everyone involved in making this wonderful product.

[RetroFiends]

Received my harmony cart a few days ago. Everything is working like a charm. I was pleased to find that it had directory support so my cart is very well organized and easy to manage despite having 500+ roms on it. My own homebrew I'm working on (which is why I got the cart in the first place) also works perfectly.

 

I have no complaints, only praise to the people who made this possible. If I have any issues at all, it's that it's so convenient to have 500 games on a single cartridge and I have a hard time getting myself to decide which one I actually want to play. But that's my problem, not harmony's.

[Keatah]

Gotta love the CPU postage stamp!

 

 

Pictures of Harmony package and a happy customer!

[Keatah]

And regarding emulation and Harmony; is Harmony emulation? Sure is. You got modern-day chips simulating the signals that used to be "generated" by a masked rom, diode array, eprom, prom, or eeprom, whatever was in vogue in the 70's and 80's. Furthermore, is Harmony "pure" by yesteyear's specifications and Atari's original charter? Probably not.

 

But think about it.. Back in the day, the VCS had all kinds of ROM technologies plugged into it anyway. Harmony is merely another way of presenting the Game Program to the VCS circuitry. A natural progression of yesterday's technology.

 

Having started to grow up on dedicated consoles, part of the magic of the VCS was indeed the cartridge port. One console could do it all! Harmony is no different. It's just another cartridge, albiet with mega-storage capacity.

 

To me, Harmony is just another innovation in cartridge manufacturing. Maybe in 10 years there'll be a M.A.M.E. cartridge. A cartridge to somehow magically run the actual code from arcade machines on the VCS.

 

Depending how YOU look at it determines what it is. Ain't that remarkable or what!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

To me, Harmony is just another innovation in cartridge manufacturing. Maybe in 10 years there'll be a M.A.M.E. cartridge. A cartridge to somehow magically run the actual code from arcade machines on the VCS.

I am sure that could be done today already. You just have to integrate the video out and the joystick ports into the cart too.

[+batari]

Gotta love the CPU postage stamp!

 

 

Wow, I miss those days of cheap international shipping... it costs nearly twice that now!

 

CPU means "contract postal unit"

 

http://about.usps.com/suppliers/becoming/contract-postal-unit.htm

[+batari]

And regarding emulation and Harmony; is Harmony emulation? Sure is. You got modern-day chips simulating the signals that used to be "generated" by a masked rom, diode array, eprom, prom, or eeprom, whatever was in vogue in the 70's and 80's. Furthermore, is Harmony "pure" by yesteyear's specifications and Atari's original charter? Probably not.

If by "pure" you mean that it meets all of the specs, it is pure. but then again, the 6507 specs on the 2600 are very lax. 2.4v is all you need for a logic high, and you have nearly 600ns to get valid data on the bus after an address change.

 

If you mean "pure" in that it acts just like an EPROM, well, the voltages and timing are not the same. ROMs probably output close to 5v (though I've never actually measured) and their timing is pretty consistent. The Harmony outputs a solid, regulated, low impedence 3.3v, though the timing is not consistent, probably +/- 100ns or so. Regardless, both are always within spec, so the 2600 doesn't care and doesn't know the difference.

[mad4j]

Thanks a lot!

Just a pleasure playing my game on a real equipment.

Thanks again,

mad4j

[Joe Stella]

Another happy Atarian! Big kudos to the developers.

[maiki]

I have always wanted this device and finally decided to order it. I have chosen the micro SD version and do not regret that. Everything including the small slot is very compact and the case is the good old style which opens up when you insert it into the console. Harmony cartridge is not only useful so that you do not have to insert every single game you want to play but it allows you to easily run various improvements of the original games, and homebrews.

 

I bought the cheapest micro SD card they had which was 2 GBs Transcend. I have some 450 games on it and I do not even use any folders system and the selection is still pretty quick using left and right you simply page through them. Have all the names in capital letters to keep things readable and as simple as possible. I do not even use file extensions and Harmony still boots them all with no problems.

 

Big thank you for this wonderful product. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to play the Atari 2600 for real.

[Gurner]

Yeah, add me – having a fantastic time with my Harmony Cart, works on PAL like a dream.

[Place Logo Here]

Like the others who have posted in this thread, I have to give a big shout-out to Fred Quimby.

 

My primary system of interest is the Intellivision (now, now--let's not start a flame war about it). I never really had much interest in the 2600 until I started following the development of all these homebrew games discussed here on the AtariAge site (to whom I also give a deep bow). I had long known a 7800 would also play games for the older console, but only recently acquired one on eBay. Then I waited on the fence a looong time before springing for a Harmony cart.

 

Don't know what took me so long. I already thought this would be great, as I love my AtariMax SD cart for my 5200 (note to 5200 owners: your life will not be complete until you play "Blaster", a completed prototype that was inexplicably left unreleased).

 

But I also went the deluxe route with the Harmony, and that extra money was worth it. Heck, it was worth it just for "Stay Frosty" which has quickly become one of my favorite games for the VCS.

 

My main thing with any older console are the prototypes for games in varying degrees of completion--glimpses into a kind of parallel universe that might have been. No system seems to have as many prototypes as the 2600, and the Harmony has left me enthralled over these curiosities.

 

Then there's the homebrews. I truly do not mean any offense by this but, when I first started reading about Princess Rescue here, I thought it was a funny idea in concept but kind of pointless as a full-on project. Thanks to the Harmony cart, I have now seen the light and I must beg forgiveness for this slight. Princess Rescue is incredibly well executed, and turns a game with which I thought I was too familiar into a new and exciting challenge.

 

I could ramble on further, but I think I have said my piece. This is my testimony to those who have yet to purchase a Harmony cart: it is not just brilliant, it is necessary.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Place Logo Here

[AtariBuff]

Also received the Harmony package today. Can't wait to try it out on the weekend. Many thanks for quick shipment and the Harmony Cart as such

[ATASCI]

Hey guys. New to Atariage. I am looking for a Harmony Cart. Where do I get one?

[+adamchevy]

Google harmony cart and atariage thank you for the harmony cart! I have been truly loving it!

 

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Hey guys. New to Atariage. I am looking for a Harmony Cart. Where do I get one?

http://harmony.atariage.com/

[mitchd61]

My Harmony Cart arrived today! I had my SD card already prepped and ready to go for when it arrived. I must say it's an impressive piece of hardware and money well spent. With the below zero temps today, I have another great reason to stay inside.

[Marius]

How exciting is this! I have usually a big box of favorite 2600 titles (and I must say, there are really a lot of cool titles in my favorites) and now I have all this in ONE cart, and even more.

 

I am VERY excited about this. I am an atari 8bit person from the start, but I own a 2600 since 1988, and now (2014) I start appreciating this console more and more, and this Harmony cart is really the ultimate must-have add-on for my atari 2600.

 

Thanks a lot!

[Arkos]

Received my Harmony cart yesterday and it's working flawlessly. (needless to say, after having flashed the PAL HBios)

Thank you very much and congratulations for this nice piece of engineering!

Greetings from France.

[AtariBuff]

Had a chance to try out the Harmony Cart and it works smooth and is all one can wish for. Nicely done - a high quality product

[English Invader]

I've been a Harmony user for the best part of two years. I only just found out about this thread.

 

I also use the following devices:

 

uIEC/SD (C64/VIC-20)

SD2IEC (C64/VIC-20)

DivIDE (ZX Spectrum)

UltraSatan (Atari ST)

 

Harmony beats all those devices in terms of compatibility and simplicity. The other devices had a pretty big learning curve before I was able to use them effectively (particularly DivIDE and UltraSatan), but Harmony was pretty much plug and play (the only issue I had was finding PAL files, most of the AA support software is aimed at North American users, but that wasn't too much of a problem) and after two years of regular use I don't think I've come across a single incompatibility (the other devices are about 60% compatible at best).

 

Thank you to all concerned in the development of Harmony. It's a truly exceptional device.

[boomlinde]

Mine came with the mail yesterday. Well packed, and worked perfectly! Really great value for the money spent. i've been exploring the forum and noticed people have been using the ARM to offload the 6507. Is there a way to use the USB port to write arbitrary values into sections of mappable memory while it is running, or is it just for ROM burning?

[sprazzi]

shipped from portland oregon on march, 8th

arrived in Italy on the 19th!

thank you!!!