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Harmony Cart 7800


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I'd say this is kaput. I couldn't even get a clear understand of what was actually malfunctioning. Was it just 2600 titles? If so, oh well, release the thing. We all own the Harmony.

The current issue is on certain 7800 units Concerto crashes, after a 7800 game is selected from the menu.

 

The Harmony family of carts race the bus to emulate ROM, so timing is critical. I think on certain 7800s, that timing is off. Why? Dunno. Maybe old components. We've certainly seen inconsistent 7800 behavior on other projects.

 

I wrote a test rom, that users with the problem ran. They found that certain "ROM" pages couldn't be read without error. On one 7800, the problem actually went away after the unit warmed up. On another, it was present all the time. Worth mentioning there are other Concerto users who don't have the problem at all.

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The current issue is on certain 7800 units Concerto crashes, after a 7800 game is selected from the menu.

 

The Harmony family of carts race the bus to emulate ROM, so timing is critical. I think on certain 7800s, that timing is off. Why? Dunno. Maybe old components. We've certainly seen inconsistent 7800 behavior on other projects.

 

I wrote a test rom, that users with the problem ran. They found that certain "ROM" pages couldn't be read without error. On one 7800, the problem actually went away after the unit warmed up. On another, it was present all the time. Worth mentioning there are other Concerto users who don't have the problem at all.

 

Hmmm. Well, the SD2SNES fails on many SNES consoles, particularly those with weaker caps, and CPU's on the way out, so it's not unheard of. As I said at the time, I was open to buying it, and giving it a go, but batari stopped all sales. I also suspected that someone coming from a different "direction" might use a technique that didn't get struck down by timing issues, but only SainT has shown interest, and he's bogged down by the Jaguar.

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That is why I ultimately went with the Mateos 16 in 1. Aside from a few of the newer homebrew games not originally working on it, it has ran everything else I've tossed on it just fine. And I use the 7800 diagnostics rom from it when I mod client consoles. Point being, I haven't encountered a 7800 yet pass my way that the Mateos wouldn't work on. So I've been very pleased with that purchase!

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As I said at the time, I was open to buying it, and giving it a go, but batari stopped all sales.

batari put a few units out there, and it was a sh*t show. People with problems complained that their 7800s ran commercial mask rom games fine, and so they shouldn't need to buy another console. Some were upset when fixes weren't coming in a timely manner. One even dremelled his cart to try and turn it into a 2600 Harmony.

 

I don't believe batari is far from a solution, but I don't believe he's actively working on it right now. In one of the forum threads, he advised that had been offline for personal reasons.

 

I agree that another design coming from another angle, with different components, may not encounter the same problems.

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One even dremelled his cart to try and turn it into a 2600 Harmony.

It would have worked too, but it wouldn't fit in the 2600 cart slot. The Harmony BIOS is functional on the Concerto, even without the extra pins. Somehow removing them made the Harmony BIOS more stable when used on the 7800.

 

 

 

Issue I was having (prior to mutilation) was the 7800 ROMs somehow got corrupted when flashed to cart RAM, not sure if it was during the read or write, and it was oddly the same banks affected each time according to the test rom.

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It's your property, so no need to justify it. I raised it as part of the picture, to illustrate how negative the reaction was to an as-is release. Money changed hands, and some customers were frustrated with the level of support.

 

If batari is swamped or otherwise unable to support right now, selling new units would just be more of the same sh*t show. I don't wish that on him, or you guys.

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  • 4 weeks later...

It wasn't that much of a shitshow really, so much as it was just a couple of buyers (out of like 50 total) who had major issues with their particular consoles, and essentially hijacked every single thread discussing the concerto turning them unreadable personal attack blogs. Most of the people who got one had a few minor expected issues and behaved appropriately. Some people just should not buy demo work in progress hardware if they can't contain themselves.

Edited by John Stamos Mullet
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I know I'm just echoing everyone else, but this is a shame. I am very late to the party, so it's my own fault. I really want something to get my own code running on real 7800 hardware.

 

It would also be great to be able to share original new software with others.

Edited by orange808
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You may be late, but I was basically "at the party," and I just wanted to buy one. Like Stamos said, they never became available to the public (beyond that one convention), and eventually, that was that. I don't want to play 2600 games on my 7800, just wanted it to play homebrew.

Edited by Greg2600
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You know, this was like that really awesome frat party back in college you wanted to go to, planned for, but didn't make because you had to study, do laundry, take roommate to visit his mom in the er, or some other bullshit excuse.

 

Then you find out they had loud music, booze, pot, underage girls, and then the cops shown up and basically everyone got arrested. A friend study group partner dude that lives three doors down the hall annoying asshole calls you at 6am saturday to bail him out of jail. You tell him you got his back, will be right over, and hang up the phone. "Damn, I'm sure glad I missed that party..." you say to yourself, before rolling over to go back to sleep. :sleep:

 

Yeah, some parties aren't worth showing up for. This one had a $130 covercharge on top of that... :ponder:

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  • 3 months later...

I know I'm just echoing everyone else, but this is a shame. I am very late to the party, so it's my own fault. I really want something to get my own code running on real 7800 hardware.

 

It would also be great to be able to share original new software with others.

 

There was the Atari ST dev system? have you looked at that.. I believe there was a way to connect via serial link to test software

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  • 8 months later...

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