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Complete game database of Atari Lynx titles


Igor

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I've been maintaining a database of all Atari Lynx games over at Atari Gamer. It's the most up-to-date database of Lynx titles and is constantly being improved and added to. You can find it over here: https://atarigamer.com/lynx/games

 

You can also 'explore' various official and homebrew games using a different style interface over here - https://atarigamer.com/explore

 

The aim is to document all of the various homebrews, prototypes, demos, mini-games, official games, utility cartridges, etc.

I've had several suggestions on improvements, but I'm happy to hear more and if there's anything missing I'd love to hear about it so I can add it to the database.

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I'll start off with my list of "rotated" games...

 

  • Flappy Bird - Left
  • Gauntlet: The Third Encounter - Left
  • KLAX - Left
  • Centipede - Right
  • Lexis - Right
  • NFL Football - Right
  • Raiden - Right

In your database, but not mine, I think Command: Starship is also rotated.

Edited by bhall408
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Here is my list of games I have observed to make use of stereo (panning)

 

  • Battle Wheels
  • Cyber Virus
  • Cyber Virus: CinciClassic Edition
  • Dirty Larry: Renegade Cop
  • KLAX
  • Lemmings
  • Lynx Diagnostic
  • Ponx
  • Remnant
  • RoadBlasters
  • Robo-Squash
  • Robotron: 2084
  • SFX
  • Xenophobe
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Thanks. I'm not storing the direction of rotation, just that the game is 'vertical', but since none of the entries in the database have that filled in, I can change the data type easily enough and store the direction of rotation too. Thanks for the rest of the data points.

 

How do you see the stereo/rotation being used? Is it something that should be searchable or is it enough to just display it on the game information pages?

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Thanks. I'm not storing the direction of rotation, just that the game is 'vertical', but since none of the entries in the database have that filled in, I can change the data type easily enough and store the direction of rotation too. Thanks for the rest of the data points.

 

How do you see the stereo/rotation being used? Is it something that should be searchable or is it enough to just display it on the game information pages?

 

 

Rotation

I'm tracking it because it is needed for emulation... It isn't enough to know that it is rotated at all, you need to know which direction you are meant to rotate.

 

It is a field in the LNX file format.

 

Unfortunately there are games that leave the flag at the default (off) even when they need rotation, and there was at least one that had it set the opposite of what it was meant to be set.

 

Stereo

I initially was tracking this as I was working on stereo support and needed to find titles to test with. I'm now interested in tracking it in order to enable simulated stereo for titles that didn't take advantage of it. I do most of my playing either on mobile devices with wireless headphones (only down side being the latency you get doing BT audio, but I put up with it), or on TV with a nice sound system.

 

LNX Format

I've pondered creating a v2 of the LNX file format... Perhaps add support for XML or JSON for the meta-data which would then be extensible...

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More on LNX file format...

 

There is a great Mac tool called Synalyze Pro for which you can create your own "grammars" of structures and file formats.

 

I've been using to view/edit/fix existing LNX files.

 

It supports user contributed grammars, so I uploaded my LNX grammar to their database.

 

(It is also a full blown GUI hex file editor, so you can do edits by hand if you don't have the grammar)

 

You can find the app here: https://www.synalysis.net

 

There is an issue in that it isn't clear to me if the app name and developer name fields are meant to be fixed width *and* null terminated, or just fixed width and null padded.

 

I have seen at least one LNX file that had a 16 byte name in the 16 byte field, but the format says it is meant to be ASCIIZ, which is c-string style null terminated.

 

From the emulator side, you just code up defensively and manually null pad it into a 17 byte c-string if you see that, but it would be nice to know what the intent was from whomever did the format.

 

Which is another reason to update the format -- you want to be able to support longer names, unicode names (for example, Japanese/Korean/etc titles), etc.

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With my programmer board software changes I am assuming that the strings are null padded up to the length of the field. If you do end up defining a new header format I can try to add its support. Maybe a better way of doing it is defining a separate metadata file for a ROM, so the LNX format stays the same - you could reference the metadata file from the manufacturer field in the LNX format.

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Very nice! I attempted a project like this a number of years ago but.... let's just I lost steam. The skeletal remnants haunt Atariage to this day lol

 

Thanks, I made use of that to help fill out some of the details, so you've been a great help and didn't know it :thumbsup:

 

Forgot my LGSS cartridge :-)

 

Ah yes, I've been trying to track down a copy but haven't been successful so far. Karri has the sources so I can try and build it and see if it works with Othello.

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That's a good suggestion, I was thinking of adding that as well. Most of the games wouldn't have this, but a few will, some like Xump support both SD cart and EEPROM saves too. If you can get me a list of what games have support for it, I'll add that to the database.

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Just out of my memory.

 

128 byte eeproms are in use in

Alpine Games

Mega Pak I

Flappy bird testing

Wyvern Tales

Reiko's Robot Run (on Always winter, never Christmas cart)

Sylvester (On Shaken, not stirred cart)

 

16k nvram is in use only in

EOTB

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Is there a section on games that we know were planned but never saw the light of day?

 

 

I've planned to add a section like that but haven't so far. You can use the advanced search options to find them though - https://atarigamer.com/lynx/games?z=1&s=releases&o=99

 

Thanks Karri, thefred, I'll add this to the database too.

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I've added two fields - Lynx SD support and EEPROM size. The games mentioned in this thread so far have been updated. I've also updated Xump since that supports both the SD and 128b EEPROM (even though it's not released on cart yet).

 

Screenshot is for Alpine Games (https://atarigamer.com/lynx/game/AlpineGamesLuchsSoft/613259437)

 

post-54616-0-03901700-1557619431_thumb.png

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  • 4 weeks later...

Could you either make it searchable, or post a list view of what you currently have for titles with known values for SD/EEPROM?

 

 

Sorry for the delay, lots of things got in the way. I've not forgotten about this though! Will try and have it done soon.

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Could you either make it searchable, or post a list view of what you currently have for titles with known values for SD/EEPROM?

 

EEPROM sizes field is now searchable. You'll probably have to force reload data from the server first (bottom of the listing).

Do you think there's much value in making the Lynx SD support field searchable too?

 

 

post-54616-0-39751400-1559732435_thumb.png

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