Igor Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 On 9/26/2020 at 8:10 AM, JagChris said: Oh it's an Apri! Fools joke. Jesus Have you seen this version though? https://atarigamer.com/lynx/game/MortalKombatSV2k19Version/850540296 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Yes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 On 9/16/2020 at 11:28 AM, Lost Dragon said: Whilst talking about Lynx Rolling Thunder in Frank Gasking's GTW book, Chuck Ernst reveals he approached Atari with idea they see Mortal Kombat converted to the Lynx. Atari Management rejected the idea, saying they already had Pitfighter and that was similar enough. Interesting, I never heard anything about the possibility of Mortal Kombat coming to the Lynx "back in the day". I was surprised to learn a few years ago that NEC/Turbo Technologies in the US did try to negotiate the rights to Mortal Kombat for TurboGrafx-16, but NEC's Japanese management rejected it. It's mentioned on page 5 of this article: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/225466/stalled_engine_the_turbografx16_.php On 9/23/2020 at 12:11 PM, agradeneu said: The thing is, MK should have been impossible to port to the Lynx, due to lack of RAM, only 16 colors, low res, only 4 sound channels, 2 buttons. But the demo is as faithfully translated as it could get. There was a reasonably good version of Mortal Kombat for Game Gear. It lost a fair amount of weight in the process (removed one character and a lot of the stages, and also simplified the controls), but preserved enough of the game that it was still recognizable as MK. Compared to Lynx, Game Gear has somewhat higher vertical resolution and twice the onscreen colors, but also much worse sound and sprite handling capabilities. Even back then, there was no doubt in my mind that the Lynx would've been able to offer a more faithful version of Mortal Kombat. The homebrew demo has proven that in very convincing fashion. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agradeneu Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Agent X said: Interesting, I never heard anything about the possibility of Mortal Kombat coming to the Lynx "back in the day". I was surprised to learn a few years ago that NEC/Turbo Technologies in the US did try to negotiate the rights to Mortal Kombat for TurboGrafx-16, but NEC's Japanese management rejected it. It's mentioned on page 5 of this article: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/225466/stalled_engine_the_turbografx16_.php There was a reasonably good version of Mortal Kombat for Game Gear. It lost a fair amount of weight in the process (removed one character and a lot of the stages, and also simplified the controls), but preserved enough of the game that it was still recognizable as MK. Compared to Lynx, Game Gear has somewhat higher vertical resolution and twice the onscreen colors, but also much worse sound and sprite handling capabilities. Even back then, there was no doubt in my mind that the Lynx would've been able to offer a more faithful version of Mortal Kombat. The homebrew demo has proven that in very convincing fashion. The Game Gear version is quite messy. I think even the Game boy has one (and it's awful)?!! Back in the days they ported successful arcade games to nearly any system under the sun, no matter how terrible the ports were, they tried to cash in on the popularity of the arcade game. Edited October 12, 2020 by agradeneu 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy ST Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 (edited) Of course, look at those awful Hard Drivin' ports. Some on machines clearly incapable of running even a minimal version of the game well. Edited October 12, 2020 by Leeroy ST Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFG 9000 Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 20 hours ago, Agent X said: Compared to Lynx, Game Gear has somewhat higher vertical resolution and twice the onscreen colors, but also much worse sound and sprite handling capabilities. Even back then, there was no doubt in my mind that the Lynx would've been able to offer a more faithful version of Mortal Kombat. The homebrew demo has proven that in very convincing fashion. The Lynx has been shown in recent years to be capable of far more than 16 colors onscreen at a time. Dunno if you've seen that tech demo with the Megan Fox photo on the Lynx, but it's gorgeous...and not just because it's Megan Fox. I know it's not fair to compare work done on the Lynx 30 years after its life to work done on the Game Gear in its heyday, but has the Game Gear ever been shown to do more than 32 colors onscreen? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTR Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Well.. we all are waiting on that Megan Fox demo file now.. ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFG 9000 Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 1 hour ago, MTR said: Well.. we all are waiting on that Megan Fox demo file now.. ? This one. I would love to credit whichever technical wizard did this, but I don't know who it is. There are a few more "hi-res" Lynx image programs too. I'm sure I got all the files from somewhere on AtariAge. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTR Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 (edited) Daaaaamn.. buoyyy.. this looks pretty amazing!! if Lynx would have a wallpaper - this would be IT" Well.. let the hunt begin!!!! (found it!!) Edited October 13, 2020 by MTR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFG 9000 Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Here are some more, for anybody curious. There is a fifth one, but the screen scrolls up and down to display the full image, so I can't show the whole thing in a still photo. MTR, can you say where you found the Megan Fox file? I really hate to not have the creator of these acknowledged, but I can't seem to find anything here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agradeneu Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 12 minutes ago, PFG 9000 said: Here are some more, for anybody curious. There is a fifth one, but the screen scrolls up and down to display the full image, so I can't show the whole thing in a still photo. MTR, can you say where you found the Megan Fox file? I really hate to not have the creator of these acknowledged, but I can't seem to find anything here. Question is: Can you do animation/games with more than 16 colors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agradeneu Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 (edited) 14 hours ago, PFG 9000 said: The Lynx has been shown in recent years to be capable of far more than 16 colors onscreen at a time. Dunno if you've seen that tech demo with the Megan Fox photo on the Lynx, but it's gorgeous...and not just because it's Megan Fox. I know it's not fair to compare work done on the Lynx 30 years after its life to work done on the Game Gear in its heyday, but has the Game Gear ever been shown to do more than 32 colors onscreen? I think the Lynx screen is more pleasant than the GG: technically it has lower res and less colors, but in practice the image looks cleaner and has a better screen ratio. However, 32 colors instead of 16 is much nicer for artists! Edited October 13, 2020 by agradeneu 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTR Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 15 minutes ago, PFG 9000 said: Here are some more, for anybody curious. There is a fifth one, but the screen scrolls up and down to display the full image, so I can't show the whole thing in a still photo. MTR, can you say where you found the Megan Fox file? I really hate to not have the creator of these acknowledged, but I can't seem to find anything here. PFG 9000, I found it here, on AA. Legendary member/programmer "enthusi" made this stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fadest Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 39 minutes ago, agradeneu said: Question is: Can you do animation/games with more than 16 colors? Apart Duranik with Alpine Games and Bonus cartridge, I wonder if someone used more than 16 colors while ingame ? http://duranik.com/lynx.html Quote Lynx HighColor pictures games use more than 16 simultaneous colors For me, Alpine Games is a masterpiece, the best game in Lynx library (commercial era and homebrews) (but maybe I'm biased, Winter Games was my first game on my first computer :D ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy ST Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 1 hour ago, PFG 9000 said: Here are some more, for anybody curious. There is a fifth one, but the screen scrolls up and down to display the full image, so I can't show the whole thing in a still photo. MTR, can you say where you found the Megan Fox file? I really hate to not have the creator of these acknowledged, but I can't seem to find anything here. Time to Install Windows 1.0 onto the Lynx so I can have an excuse to have a portable desktop background. Actually now that I think about it Windows 1.0 is pretty old maybe you could get the Lynx to run it? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 1 hour ago, Fadest said: Apart Duranik with Alpine Games and Bonus cartridge, I wonder if someone used more than 16 colors while ingame ? http://duranik.com/lynx.html For me, Alpine Games is a masterpiece, the best game in Lynx library (commercial era and homebrews) (but maybe I'm biased, Winter Games was my first game on my first computer :D ) indeed. a few games use rasters, if that counts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTR Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 51 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said: Time to Install Windows 1.0 onto the Lynx so I can have an excuse to have a portable desktop background. Actually now that I think about it Windows 1.0 is pretty old maybe you could get the Lynx to run it? Man, you're a genius! That would be groundbreaking! and I bet Lynx would run it like a piece of cake Now we got to find someone who's up for realizing this idea 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fadest Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 You'd better try to port GeOS from the C64. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTR Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 5 minutes ago, Fadest said: You'd better try to port GeOS from the C64. That would be right in the ballpark for Lynx, if some one could do it.. 8-bit system, executable from Lynx GD would be a dream.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 2 hours ago, MTR said: Man, you're a genius! That would be groundbreaking! and I bet Lynx would run it like a piece of cake Now we got to find someone who's up for realizing this idea According to Microsoft, Windows 1.0 required a minimum of 256 kilobytes, two double-sided floppy disk drives, and a graphics adapter card. A hard disk and 512 KB memory were recommended for running multiple programs or when using DOS 3.0 or higher. Machines most likely had 8086 CPU running at 8 MHz. Yeah - perfectly doable on the little 6502! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 On 10/12/2020 at 9:25 PM, PFG 9000 said: The Lynx has been shown in recent years to be capable of far more than 16 colors onscreen at a time. Dunno if you've seen that tech demo with the Megan Fox photo on the Lynx, but it's gorgeous...and not just because it's Megan Fox. I wasn't previously familiar with those graphical demos until now, so thanks for posting them! Even if this technique could not be applied easily (or at all) during the gameplay in a fast-action game, it could still be very useful for a title screen or a cinematic sequence. 11 hours ago, Fadest said: Apart Duranik with Alpine Games and Bonus cartridge, I wonder if someone used more than 16 colors while ingame ? I recall reading that RoadBlasters and Awesome Golf exceeded the normal 16-color "limit". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 What about Push Around the World? That had some pretty impressive hi-colour displays, if I recall... Excellent game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTR Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 David, you're right, that game sure did have nice backgrounds! Game would not be the same without them 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordKraken Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 (edited) This technique is not specific to the Lynx and is probably the most famous demomaker technique since overcoming colour limitations on 8bit hardware back in the days was considered the most important thing in life apparently ? (note that it is not limited to 8bits machine; any hardware with less colours than pixels on screen could benefit from it even though it's definitely less relevant on a snes and its 256 colours for instance). It relies on changing the palette after each scan line, i.e. once a line has been drawn you quickly change the palette. Simple as that. It has several limitations. 1) your image or whatever you draw on screen needs to be prepared with this limitation in mind, i.e you can display many more colors but still only 16 different per line. Making this method almost impossible to use for anything more dynamic than a static picture... (it's not impossible but...) 2) the switching palette code needs to be super fast since it runs multiple times during each screen refresh. Still it will have an impact on your game performance. People with advanced "demomaker skills" like Sage or Enthusi might develop on that, but I don't see how this technique could be used in a real time game. Maybe for a more static one like chess? Edited October 14, 2020 by LordKraken 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nop90 Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 There is a discussion about HI colors static images here: I added such a splashscreen in 4Ttude. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.