Newbie Lynx questions

[Blarginatorr]

Hello all.

I've been lurking around for some time now but still have a few questions about the Lynx, and I hope someone would be kind enough to educate me.

 

I found out about the Lynx console not until a year ago and found it quite, hmm... special?

I decided that I just had to get one.

 

So now I've had a model 1 for some time now and finding it rather nice. Though, the library of games is bit on the smaller side and there seems to be some sub-par quality titles in there aswell, but I shouldnt be complaining considering its age and how it market performed back in the days...

 

Anyways, the questions I had:

 

I still dont have a carrying pouch for my Lynx, and I've seen people offering "different" models for both Lynx1 and Lynx2. What's the difference between those bags? And how does one identify which pouch model is in question?

 

What are the limitations of the Lynx's color palette? Reading some sources I understand that its complete palette is supposed to be 12-bits, 4096 colors. But I dont really understand what the "16 colors per scanline" means in practical use.

So in short: What is one supposed to know when making graphics for the lynx?

 

I'm an "artist", kinda... And I like, no, LOVE pixel art, but I've never gotten into making actual game sprites. Probably because there hasnt been any need for doing it, even though always been interested in making games.

But, I have no idea how to program nor code.

 

I still think that the Lynx is an underrated platform, which still has great potential for greater games, as example this recent Zaku game, even though I dont have it, yet, I still think its one incredibly great game which shows clearly that old consoles arent dead yet.

[TailChao]

I can't help much with the bags & accessories questions, but I'll do my best on the technical.

 

What are the limitations of the Lynx's color palette? Reading some sources I understand that its complete palette is supposed to be 12-bits, 4096 colors. But I dont really understand what the "16 colors per scanline" means in practical use.

So in short: What is one supposed to know when making graphics for the lynx?

The master palette is 12-Bits, but you can display 16 colors of it at a time. The thing to remember about the Lynx is that it's a framebuffer system, not a raster linebuffer like the NES, so whatever you're seeing onscreen is effectively stored as a 160x102x4bpp bitmap in memory. The "16-colors per scanline" deal is brought up since you effectively can change the color palette at any time during display or VBlank with no artifacts (since an LCD pixel fetch cannot occur at the same time a color register is written to, the bus is shared). Keeping this in mind, you can get a good tradeoff with CPU usage and more colors with a few IRQs to adjust the palette during display.

 

So basically remember that it's easy to change the palette whenever you want to get more than 16 colors, but this increases your CPU usage. I'd suggest just drawing everything in flat 16-colors unless you're going for a specific effect.

 

The other thing to remember is that all of your graphics are stored in a compressed format which is automatically depacked while drawing to the framebuffer. This packed format also supports 1,2,3, and 4bpp graphics, so you can creatively work around the Lynx's 64KB memory limitations. There's also no limitation on the size of your graphics, except that they must be less than 512 pixels wide horizontally. Other than that, you can have even, odd, or whatever size of image you want (i.e. you're not stuck with 8x8 or 16x16 tiles/sprites). It's an incredibly flexible system.

 

I'm an "artist", kinda... And I like, no, LOVE pixel art, but I've never gotten into making actual game sprites. Probably because there hasnt been any need for doing it, even though always been interested in making games.

But, I have no idea how to program nor code.

I learned to program on the Lynx, and even though it was such a miserable failure in the market, it's a very good machine to learn on. The hardware is very simple, but has enough power to take advantage of once you learn how to use it. I can't suggest enough that you try it out.

 

I still think that the Lynx is an underrated platform, which still has great potential for greater games, as example this recent Zaku game, even though I dont have it, yet, I still think its one incredibly great game which shows clearly that old consoles arent dead yet.

Thank-you. I appreciate that.

Edited February 13, 2010 by TailChao

[Blarginatorr]

Thanks for explaining that.

 

One problem with programming is that I feel that learning it would take too much time and effort, especially if aiming to get good at it. I'm no computer wiz.

And I dont really know where to even begin if I'm supposed to learn programming.

[The_Laird]

The Lynx was far from a miserable failure, especially by Atari standards. It outsold the 7800 and the Jaguar. Although nobody has ever been able to get concrete sales figures it has been suggested that it sold as many as 5 Million units. I know it sold very well in the UK and I believe it outsold the Gamegear for a long period of time. When I worked for Game in 94 when the Jag was around we were still selling Lynxs and Lynx games.

[108 Stars]

The encyclopedia of game machines speaks of 2 million sold units.

[chris_lynx1989]

About Lynx "Pouch" cases,I don't remember there being a difference in the box to know without taking one out and looking at it.The original ones were longer for the Lynx 1s,which,their production quit around July/August of '91 and the Lynx 2s were phased in at that time.One way I can think of identifying them now is,once they went to the new Lynx 2 stuff(accessories)they used generic white boxes with black printing.Before these the accessories came in color boxes (3 or 4 color) for the Lynx 1.

[chris_lynx1989]

Also,I do know that the very early Lynx 2 Pouches were in the Lynx 1 series color boxes ( I had 2 like this) till they used them up before going to the generic ones.

[Blarginatorr]

Hmm... if it really is like you said, I think I have to simply lurk more until I find a pouch that I'm 100% sure that its the right one.

[chris_lynx1989]

Yeah,I suppose.If you get to see scans either here or on eBay you'll notice that one case is longer than the other.I'm also thinking that the Lynx 2 cases were slightly thicker besides being not as long.

[SwedenLynxer]

I'm an "artist", kinda... And I like, no, LOVE pixel art, but I've never gotten into making actual game sprites. Probably because there hasnt been any need for doing it, even though always been interested in making games.

But, I have no idea how to program nor code.

Maybe you can team up with someone. There are many talented Lynx programers here. Im sure there are always a job for a good graphics artist.

[Blarginatorr]

Maybe you can team up with someone. There are many talented Lynx programers here. Im sure there are always a job for a good graphics artist.

 

That's a rather good option.

Of course, first I should create something to display, to show if I'm good for anything, heh.