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Harmony 1.06 BIOS (beta)


batari

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  • 1 month later...

I have an ignorant question. Why is this BIOS still in a beta state? Is it not stable yet, are other features being worked on, is it defunct now that there's a new Harmony cart out, or is it simply Real Life getting in the way?

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It's fully functional, the only reason it's beta still is because it needs a bit of polish. Meaning you may experience a single screen roll in some corner cases while navigating the menu, and the yin-yang spinner and Encore final load screen are not synced so you might experience a single screen roll there, too. Plus I want to change the colors in the Encore load screen and maybe make it load faster. I will get to those fixes eventually, and maybe by then someone will find a new bug or there will be a new feature request that I wish to implement.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Well, I figured out I better find an alternative solution by myself, so maybe others can use it also: pass the RF of the Atari 2600 through a Video recorder and then take it out from video composite+audio or euroconnector. This fixes the colours.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 months later...
  • 1 month later...

It's fully functional, the only reason it's beta still is because it needs a bit of polish. Meaning you may experience a single screen roll in some corner cases while navigating the menu, and the yin-yang spinner and Encore final load screen are not synced so you might experience a single screen roll there, too. Plus I want to change the colors in the Encore load screen and maybe make it load faster. I will get to those fixes eventually, and maybe by then someone will find a new bug or there will be a new feature request that I wish to implement.

 

Hi Fred - I know you've been busy with Concerto-related stuff (yay!) but do you or anyone else have any reasons why I shouldn't go ahead and flash my Harmony with the 1.06 beta 2 BIOS? Is it working okay for everyone?

 

Looks like it's fully functional, just could use some tiny amounts of polish around the edges. I'll give it a whirl tonight and see how it goes; if for some reason shit goes down, I'll revert to 1.05, which is what I'm on right now (it shipped with it, got mine about a year ago).

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  • 1 month later...

On harmony encore (firmware 1.06), homebrew games which don't work :

 

- skeleton

- skeleton +

- eggventure

- the gizzle wap and the strange red

- run out

- epic adventure

- space rocks

I think all of those, with the exception of the Skeleton games, use DPC+ (for sure Space Rocks does). The DPC+ driver had a bug (reply #332) that worked fine on the original Harmony but caused problems on the Encore.

 

Detailed info (#337) on the bug:

 

...

These DPC+ games turn the device off very briefly, and accidentally, at just the wrong time (when trying to pull out of the spinner screen.) The only reason that original Harmony carts work is because a MOSFET has a body diode that will still conduct on one direction even when it's off, causing the bug to not be exploited by regular Harmony carts but get exploited by Encore.

...

 

as well as how to patch(#339) those games using a hex editor:

...

To fix any errant DPC+ games, use a hex editor to change the bytes at offset 0x200 from 00 A0 85 to 01 A0 C5. Then they will load on Encore (or any other Harmony version) with no problem.

...

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I think all of those, with the exception of the Skeleton games, use DPC+ (for sure Space Rocks does). The DPC+ driver had a bug (reply #332) that worked fine on the original Harmony but caused problems on the Encore.

 

Thank you for the answer. :)

 

p.s : harmony is better than harmony encore.

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There was also a quiet update to the first post of the "Latest Harmony Cart Software" thread with the 1.06 bios at the bottom of the post. The date the post was updated (October 2015) is also later than the date listed for the 1.06 beta 2 (Sep 2014).

Edited by BrianC
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On Harmony encore (firmware 1.06 beta 5 and firmware 1.06 year 2015), homebrew games which don't work :

 

- skeleton complet (black screen)

- skeleton + final version (black screen)

- epic adventure

- stay frosty 2 modif ntsc (menu then black screen)

- eggventure

 

Link firmware 1.06 beta 5 : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/220696-new-harmony-product-harmony-encore/page-14?do=findComment&comment=3107645

Link firmware 1.06 year 2015 : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/156500-latest-harmony-cart-software/?hl=%20latest%20%20harmony%20%20cart%20%20software

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

On my Harmony (firmware 1.06 beta 2), homebrew games which don't work :

 

- skeleton complet (black screen)

- skeleton + final version (black screen)

- epic adventure

- stay frosty 2 modif ntsc ( works )

- eggventure (works )

 

LInk firmware 1.06 beta 2 : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/226997-harmony-106-bios-beta/

 

 

775800harmony.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hello, I just updated my Harmony to 1.06 from 1.03. I went through and tested all of my roms and every one of them works fine except for Porky's. The game runs but the graphics are all messed up. I got the rom from https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=374.

 

I am using a 4 switch NTSC VCS.

 

 

 

Thanks guys.

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  • 6 years later...

In the addendum document with my Harmony Encore, it says all new bios starting with 1.06 now include an additional file called "BIOS_updater_xxxx.cu" where xxxx is NTSC or PAL. However, I can't find this file in any of the downloads at the top. How can I use the newer update method?

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