
New games for the Atari Lynx - ikromin
https://atarigamer.com/articles/in-2019-we-have-eleven-new-games-for-the-atari-lynx
======
codesushi42
Admittedly I have never tried the real hardware, only emulators. I wasn't even
aware of the Lynx's existence during my youth until years after its demise. I
have seen the unit on a few occasions out in the wild though. On paper, the
hardware looks amazing and was way ahead of any portable game system at the
time. Not only could it display in color, but it also supported scaling and
rotation effects.

The story of its creators, Epyx, is a sad one though. Epyx was traditionally a
software company, not hardware, having released hit games like "California
Games". They signed a deal with Atari that basically gave Atari the rights to
delay releases of Epyx software for any QA issues Atari found.

Atari was being run by Commodore founder Jack Tramiel at this point, and he
was known for his shady business practices. Atari abused this part of the
contract with Epyx, forcing Epyx to delay their software releases until the
company was bled dry. And then Atari took what was left of Epyx for a bargain,
including ownership of what would become the Atari Lynx (originally the
"Handy"):

 _Facing financial difficulties, Epyx sought out partners. Nintendo, Sega, and
other companies declined, but Atari Corp. and Epyx eventually agreed that
Atari Corp. would handle production and marketing, while Epyx would handle
software development. Epyx declared bankruptcy by the end of the year, and
Atari essentially owned the entire project_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx#History)

I am glad that Atari imploded a few years later. Good riddance.

Sega also ended up lifting a lot of the Lynx's design for the Game Gear after
the Handy was pitched to them by Epyx.

There is also an amusing story about how Epyx's pitch to Nintendo of Japan
went terribly wrong, though I can't find it now.

~~~
RetroSpark
> Not only could it display in color, but it also supported scaling and
> rotation effects.

IIRC the Lynx was designed at a time (1986-87) when this was feasible for
portable systems but not for consoles, because of its low resolution (160 x
102 - the height seems strange until you realize that it gives you almost
exactly 16 * 1024 pixels).

> Sega also ended up lifting a lot of the Lynx's design for the Game Gear
> after the Handy was pitched to them by Epyx.

The external design, maybe, but the internals of the two machines are very
different. The Game Gear uses a Z80 to the Lynx's 6502 and has tile-based
graphics where the Lynx uses a bitmapped display. The Game Gear is essentially
a portable Sega Master System - a console that predates the design of the
Lynx.

> There is also an amusing story about how Epyx's pitch to Nintendo of Japan
> went terribly wrong, though I can't find it now.

It's here: [https://www.retrogamer.net/profiles/hardware/atari-
lynx/](https://www.retrogamer.net/profiles/hardware/atari-lynx/)

 _“We were the first non-Nintendo people to learn of the existence of the
Nintendo Game Boy,” Needle says, recoiling even at the memory. “We were
crushed. Joe was infuriated. The Nintendo boss left the room and we just sat
there, wondering what to do next.”_

~~~
codesushi42
Interesting about the resolution, since that was 1/60th the number of pixels
as the NES. The Lynx did have a 16 bit graphics chip though.

The Epyx guys claim that Sega lifted their design for the Game Gear some time
after their pitch. I think this meant the look and feel of the system-- both
the horizontal orientation and idea of using a color display. According to
Epyx, Sega still got it wrong and produced a crappy design in comparison. To
be fair, the Lynx was a far more capable system.

~~~
RetroSpark
> According to Epyx, Sega still got it wrong and produced a crappy design in
> comparison. To be fair, the Lynx was a far more capable system.

Making the Game Gear more-or-less a portable Master System was probably the
right decision though. It enabled easy porting of existing Master System
games, and development of new games to run on both platforms. Although the SMS
was dead in Japan and North America before the Game Gear's release, it was
still going strong in Europe and other markets.

It also made possible the Game Gear's SMS mode, in which the machine behaves
_exactly_ like a Master System. This allowed backwards compatibility with
existing SMS games via an adapter (which seems to have been important to Sega
- the Genesis has a similar capability), and enabled an even simpler method of
porting SMS games: a few Game Gear games [1] are really SMS games with a
built-in adapter.

The Game Gear therefore had a stronger software library than the Lynx, despite
being technically inferior. And, ultimately, the overwhelming success of the
Game Boy showed that it is the games (and battery life) that really matter.

[1] [http://www.smspower.org/Tags/SMS-GG](http://www.smspower.org/Tags/SMS-GG)

------
vanadium
Retro gamer/collector here that’s been in and out of the Jaguar scene since
the ‘93 launch, and I can say this with the utmost respect:

Atari systems don’t die, they just go into the public domain where they tend
to live forever on an inexhaustible well of community involvement. The Jaguar
and Lynx both have a _lot_ of activity every year, and this one more than
usual.

~~~
codesushi42
True, the Jaguar is disproportionately popular in the homebrew community
compared to how many units it sold.

~~~
dmix
Why is that? I tried watching the Angry Nerd review of Jaguar and it was all
negative. Is it because it had some good under-utilized hardware?

~~~
vanadium
Pretty much; very few homebrew groups out there have been able to do much with
the hardware except to complete previously unreleased games.

However, there’re a lot of Atari ST ports coming from AtariAge, and a good
half-dozen homebrew titles of variant quality being sold on physical
cartridges (and CDs for that vanishingly small demographic) each year. YMMV.

~~~
dmix
Interesting, I've been meaning to play Another World on a retro system...

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RickSanchez2600
I had an Atari Lynx and about 30 games. I had a carrying case and wall adapter
as well because it ate batteries like crazy. I gave it to a friend who had a
computer museum.

There is an emulator for Lynx games here:
[https://atariage.com/Lynx/emulation/index.html](https://atariage.com/Lynx/emulation/index.html)

It reminded me of a hand held Amiga or Atari ST even if it had a different
chipset.

------
thom
The Lynx is one of my favourite machines ever. Satisfying and chunky, great
sound and music, and some really impressive games like Warbirds which was a
flight sim with with a polygonal world and pseudo-3D sprites.

Kudos to those involved with this effort (and the wider scene), but I've still
got a unit that runs after all these years, and I'll be very sad when the
actual hardware dies and only emulators remain.

~~~
cptskippy
> Satisfying and chunky,

Which model did you have? I had the short fat one.

> Warbirds which was a flight sim with with a polygonal world and pseudo-3D
> sprites.

Both my brother, I and two of our friends had the Lynx. It was pretty magical
setting up that token ring network cable and playing games like Todd's
Slimeworld 4 way.

~~~
theflyingkiwi42
Warbirds and Slimeworld :) The memories just came flooding back. Loved that
machine!

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megaremote
You can see the games here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQEBn4wORw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQEBn4wORw)

~~~
Yhippa
Thanks for sharing. I wish true portable consoles would come back but I guess
the rest of the world didn't want them to.

~~~
fragmede
With the exception of the Nintendo Switch, portable consoles died due to the
cost of all-custom hardware and the rise of smartphones and tablets. Bluetooth
controllers can even be paired to phones and used in some games.

Besides, other than Nintendo, who would even make such a thing? (And it should
be noted, Ninentdo has _two_ entries here - they're still producing the 2DS XL
version of the Nintendo DS.)

Sega's got out of the hardware business, thanks to Sony's shenanigans.
Microsoft has a portable gaming system with the (x86) Microsoft Surface. Not a
"true" console, as it runs windows and not a heavily locked down GameOS, but
some would consider that a plus.

Sony stopped production on the PSP Vita only earlier this year, so it's only
freshly dead and shows Sony hung onto the idea of a true portable console for
as long as possible.

An interesting entrant into the area, though, is Nvidia, with their Shield.
Discontinued, it was still an interesting product. Thing is, it leaned on
Android for its operating system, but that's not to say smartphones killed
"true portable consoles", but that Android broadened the base upon which
portable consoles could be made. There are a handful of handheld game devices
that could not have existed before.

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djmips
Anyone know how people are making homebrew Lynx carts? (The actual physical
plastic and electronics part)

~~~
ikromin
Yes, you need one of these - [https://atarigamer.com/pages/lynx-cart-
programmer-pi-hat](https://atarigamer.com/pages/lynx-cart-programmer-pi-hat)

~~~
vanadium
Didn’t even realize about the Pi Hat. Thanks for this!

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drago137
Tse wonderful)

