crazytoy Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Man what a great system it was..the main problem was the battery went out fast and not enough in stock and with atari being in a tight crunch in late 1980s. However Atari Lynx was such a nice system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 What do you mean "was"? It is a great system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MN12BIRD Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 Check out the video I made. I threw together a compilation of LYNX games just to show off its technical powers. http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=PMTF6OVsvxg I never knew how mean this thing was till I picked up mine last month! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 Yeah, the Lynx rocks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 In a way I wish I never would have sold mine, but I needed the money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 I've played a Lynx one time in my life. I played RoadBlasters and it was a lot of fun. I also played RoadBlasters in the arcade, and I thought the port I was playing was pretty good. That will all change very soon. I just put a Lynx on layaway, and I purchased four not so common games for it outright. Yep, I got me a RoadBlasters and a STUN Runner in the bunch, and I can't wait to play! The other games are stuff like Hard Drivin' and Super Off Road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 The Lynx is definitely one of the greatest portable systems ever made, and it's personally my favorite portable system ever. I also believe it's one of the most underrated systems of all time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 The Lynx is definitely one of the greatest portable systems ever made, and it's personally my favorite portable system ever. I also believe it's one of the most underrated systems of all time. The Lynx also has one of the most advanced architectures I have seen. - the sprites are unlimited with hardware scaling, custom palette indexes, collision detection and transparency - the sound engine runs independently from the CPU - high speed 62500 baud serial link with broadcast capability - interrupt-based dual screen buffering - transparent flip-screen support built in hardware for left/right handed operation - RSA public key cryptography for encrypting card content The funny thing is that nothing new has been invented for modern handhelds since the introduction of the Lynx. The software tools today are outstanding and they provide a very good introduction to programming any kind of modern systems. - cc65 C-compiler, assembler, linker, librarian with libraries for graphics, music, cart filesystem and joypad - handybug debugger with single step, breakpoints, memory content, graphics display and register content It is very nice to code for it as the machine is very deterministic. You don't have any weird bugs anymore. The only problem is that you have to learn to deal with small memory while coding - a good skill if you ever work with embedded systems. And of course you have to shrink your graphic content to fit into a cart. The cart is just not big enough for running modern games with photorealistic animations. -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Jefferson Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 The inability to access the cart memory randomly (even if it were some banked scheme) is annoying though. Of course, that was the result of the original design calling for a tape (!!!!) drive instead of a cartridge (unless I'm mistaken, it's been known to happen ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 The Lynx is definitely one of the greatest portable systems ever made, and it's personally my favorite portable system ever. I also believe it's one of the most underrated systems of all time. The Lynx also has one of the most advanced architectures I have seen. Absolutely! It was (and is) one of my favorite systems of all time. The Lynx is easily one of the best handheld systems ever with one of the greatest arcade libraries, and hardware far ahead of its time. :thumbsup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famicommander Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 I bought my first Lynx the other day from Lemmi on these boards. It's coming in the mail along with Kung Food and an AC adapter. I can't wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MN12BIRD Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 The only dumb thing I can see on my LYNX II is it has an option to turn off the backlight. But I can go outside, in DIRECT ultra bright sunlight and you still see nothing but a pure black screen! Whats the point of the backlight button?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famicommander Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 The point of the backlight button is to be able to save battery life when you set the system down or pause the game for any reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MN12BIRD Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 Ahh makes sense. I was wondering if the original LYNX had a more reflective screen or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 The point of the backlight button is to be able to save battery life when you set the system down or pause the game for any reason. Oddly, the PSP has the exact same feature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 The point of the backlight button is to be able to save battery life when you set the system down or pause the game for any reason. Oddly, the PSP has the exact same feature. The Lynx will really skip updating the screen in addition to turn off the backlight. Actually there is a point in turning off the backlight. If you listen to some music on the Lynx you can turn the display off. I used to do it sometimes when I was testing MegaPak. Another good place to turn off the backlight is if you use the Lynx as a GPS navigator. I had plans to code in zero sound when you are on a course to the target and two different sounds for left or right of the target. And the volume/pitch would indicate how much you are to the side of your course. But the GPS function is still a bit on hold. I am more interested in finishing a card game right now. -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donnerkuh Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 it was nice, and it is still nice. i´ve bought a lynx 2 month ago, and it was amazing to remember, how powerfull the system was, when it came out. 18 Years ago, my first Atari Lynx, Blue Lightning, fantastic. Unfortunaly the Lynx was not supported very much in germany. It was difficulty to buy games and there was no ebay in 1990. This was a reason why the gameboy became a "bestseller" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 The point of the backlight button is to be able to save battery life when you set the system down or pause the game for any reason. Oddly, the PSP has the exact same feature. The Lynx will really skip updating the screen in addition to turn off the backlight. Actually there is a point in turning off the backlight. If you listen to some music on the Lynx you can turn the display off. I used to do it sometimes when I was testing MegaPak. Another good place to turn off the backlight is if you use the Lynx as a GPS navigator. I had plans to code in zero sound when you are on a course to the target and two different sounds for left or right of the target. And the volume/pitch would indicate how much you are to the side of your course. But the GPS function is still a bit on hold. I am more interested in finishing a card game right now. -- Karri I had wondered about that. Seems both systems stop updating the screen with their lights off. In the Lynx's case, I can see where the backlight alone would burn gobs of power, but IIRC, the PSP's backlight doesn't use much. Yet turning the screen off usually doubles the battery life. Something else had to shut down with it. I plan to buy another set of 2650 mAh AA cells for my Lynx when I get it. They come in eight packs, and I need the two extras to replace ones that I fried in a different portable. I've heard 2 to 4 hours battery life for the Lynx back in the day on alkalines, so those new NiMH cells should give up to 8 hours methinks. Oh, and how would one play music on the Lynx? <total n00b question coming> Can it double as an mp3 player somehow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MN12BIRD Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 Oh, and how would one play music on the Lynx? <total n00b question coming> Can it double as an mp3 player somehow? Well if you have the original "Skateboard" as I like to call it you could fit an MP3 player inside it! Otherwise I don't think it has the power to decode a decent stereo MP3! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 Oh, and how would one play music on the Lynx? <total n00b question coming> Can it double as an mp3 player somehow? No. But I have tools to convert midi files to the Lynx. Only 4 channels but it is still enjoyable if the tune is good. Fitting in a mp3 player might be a better option -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 lol, maybe I should have bought the skateboard that's available instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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