Your first memory of lynx?

[unoclay]

I have a terrible memory, so my own contribution is minimal.  I know i wanted lynx because i was already in love with gameboy;  but i dont have a firm memory of acquiring it.  Almost certainly learned about Lynx from Computer Games and Computer Entertainment magazine. 

 

Pretty sure i bought it myself, via funds from my newspaper delivery route. 

 

My first memory, purely random flashes of memory, is of slime world---the green ooze, the impressive large sprites, the COLOR...that's about it.  

 

Yours?

[PFG 9000]

Around 1989, I wanted an NES and/or Gameboy.  My parents thought I only wanted them so I could be cool like my friends.  My dad proposed getting the Atari Lynx instead.  I wasn't familiar with it but I looked at the Toys 'R Us and Electronics Boutique ads, and it looked really awesome.  My parents and I each put in $50 and I got it for Christmas.  They threw in Warbirds.

[Rick Dangerous]

I was at a Club Med in St. Lucia around 1991 with my parents; had my Gameboy along and was playing Super Mario Land on it a bunch.  Another kid there had a Lynx I.  It blew me away and looked so powerful (color, backlight, great graphics!) and exotic (huge, black and orange color scheme).  I remember thinking to myself "he must be rich" haha.  I definitely wanted one, but wouldn't get one until 20+ years later.  I only got my first Lynx I about two years ago.  Anyway that memory will always stick in my mind, seeing the hardware in the wild like that for the first time. 

[+karri]

I don't remember the exact year I got the Lynx. It was the first time you could buy it in Finland. The game was Blue Lightning. I was really amazed by the power of the beast and signed up a little later as a developer and got the EPYX material from Atari. The general consensus at that time was that it was the first 16-bit system. Once I got the docs I realized that it could not be used to what I wanted to develop. So it stayed in my cupboard untl my kids got old enough.

[Killjoyy27]

When EBgames was still alive they used to open there West Chester PA warehouse once a year to clean out inventory , I went with some friends and got my own Atari Lynx on clearance since all of my friends at the time had them and they wanted to link up to play slime world.
I was able to get a ton of games by going to a place in NJ called cowtown and found brand new games there and built sizable collection of games. Had that system all the way up to 2013 when my EX wife stole it and all of my games. The happy ending I have replaced most of what I lost except Desert Strike.

[Shawn]

My first memories of the Lynx was after seeing a commercial on TV I noticed a demo unit a local store and playing a few minutes on it. Wondered how the hell this wasn't a bigger deal cause it was way better than the gameboy I owned.

[bluejay]

I first saw a Lynx II at a video game store while looking for an Atari 2600 and thought, "What a hideous thing that is."

Edited November 25, 2020 by bluejay

[PFG 9000]

9 hours ago, karri said:

Once I got the docs I realized that it could not be used to what I wanted to develop. So it stayed in my cupboard untl my kids got old enough.

If you don't mind my asking, what was it that you wanted to develop on the Lynx?  And did you get the chance to develop that idea someplace else?

 

I'm glad you gave the Lynx dev scene a second chance!

[unoclay]

13 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said:

I was at a Club Med in St. Lucia around 1991 with my parents; had my Gameboy along and was playing Super Mario Land on it a bunch.  Another kid there had a Lynx I.  It blew me away and looked so powerful (color, backlight, great graphics!) and exotic (huge, black and orange color scheme).  I remember thinking to myself "he must be rich" haha.  I definitely wanted one, but wouldn't get one until 20+ years later.  I only got my first Lynx I about two years ago.  Anyway that memory will always stick in my mind, seeing the hardware in the wild like that for the first time. 

That story is great and i cant help but note (and i think you were aware of the irony) that (although i've never been to Club Med) you were at a Club Med, thinking THAT kid looks rich, unaware of the context? 

 

i guess there's always someone with better toys, no matter how well one is doing

 

loving these anecdotes.  keep em coming!!  I wish i had more to offer.  My memory is so terrible....its like i only remember getting lynx, and then it breaking when my cousin pressed too hard on the control pad for Gates of Zendocon and broke it somehow.  And that sucks, because i think it probably was an easy repair, but i think my family eventually threw it away.  My current modded lynx isnt my OG hardware, as a result.  Sad.

 

 

[xrbrevin]

circa 1989, i went to a bloke's house to buy a 2nd hand CB radio and the guy also had a Lynx 1 with California games. i got hooked on the bmx game - landing a multi-somersault in the big drop area ?. he had acquired it in a low-value swap but wouldnt trade it on to me!

years later i picked up a Lynx 2 and did the mcwill mod and got a multicart but i still can't ace the bmx game like i did back then!!

[LordKraken]

Used to go to the local Micromania (that was the french Gamestop - Gamestop bought them eventually but they are still called Micromania) for my Amstrad games (extremely popular 8bits computer - more than the C64 in France). And then I saw it. THE L-Y-N-X. And probably Blue lightning in demo - don't recall what game it was but I was blown away. Then 10 yo me spent the next 6 months begging my parents to get me one for Christmas... and finally the glorious day arrived, we went to the store and the seller - I still remember his face - tried everything he could to make my buy a GameGear. I even had the box in my hands... until I realized what was happening and said: "NO no way"! My dream console is the Lynx. And still is today

Edited November 25, 2020 by LordKraken

[Ninjabba]

I think it was in 1994. As a kid, I was saving up all my pocket money to buy a Sega Gamegear, which took forever. Then one day I walked into the local toystore and noticed the Lynx on crazy discount (like half the price of the Gamegear) which allowed me to buy it on the spot, together with a ton of games. Those games were also discounted, around ~4 euros a piece. Imagine buying a boxed version of Lemmings for 4 euros...

Then my friends managed to break the Lynx and my parents told me to get rid of all those boxed games. I ended up giving away everything to the only other kid I knew who had a Lynx.

 

Didn't own a Lynx again until 2008, and I regret not getting back into this machine earlier.

 

[LordKraken]

2 hours ago, Ninjabba said:

to get rid of all those boxed games

 

Would have been the saddest day of my gamer life  

[Ninjabba]

51 minutes ago, LordKraken said:

Would have been the saddest day of my gamer life  

I was 11 at the time and still remember it very clear, it must've been traumatizing for the young me for sure.

All those near mint boxes, posters and manuals... makes me sad thinking about it right now ??

[gilsaluki]

3 hours ago, Ninjabba said:

I think it was in 1994. As a kid, I was saving up all my pocket money to buy a Sega Gamegear, which took forever. Then one day I walked into the local toystore and noticed the Lynx on crazy discount (like half the price of the Gamegear) which allowed me to buy it on the spot, together with a ton of games. Those games were also discounted, around ~4 euros a piece. Imagine buying a boxed version of Lemmings for 4 euros...

Then my friends managed to break the Lynx and my parents told me to get rid of all those boxed games. I ended up giving away everything to the only other kid I knew who had a Lynx.

 

Didn't own a Lynx again until 2008, and I regret not getting back into this machine earlier.

 

There were Euros in 1994?  Hummm..

[Ninjabba]

 

5 minutes ago, gilsaluki said:

There were Euros in 1994?  Hummm..

 

I don't think 5 gilders makes a lot of sense to most people here, took some inflation in mind etc.. 5 dollars perhaps.

 

0.00025 btc at time of writing to make it universal

Edited November 25, 2020 by Ninjabba

[unoclay]

4 hours ago, Ninjabba said:

Then my friends managed to break the Lynx and my parents told me to get rid of all those boxed games. I ended up giving away everything to the only other kid I knew who had a Lynx.

 

 

You know whats almost/equally as bad?  I heavily collected the big box Sierra adventure games---i had virtually ALL of the core series, complete for Apple IIGS--Kings Quest, Space, Police, Manhunter, Gold Rush, etc etc etc----not to mention a LOT of complete Infocom games (Zork 1-3, Wishbringer, etc)......and at some point, my mom must have tossed them out.  I cant be mad--my mom is a saint, and has generally not done such things--but they were taking up a bunch of space in the computer area....and she probably had enough of dusting these stupid boxes. All the box contents, the "feelies", etc.... They're so F'n valuable now...much less the nostalgia.....ug

[wolfy62]

I regrettably never owned a Lynx BITD but today I will receive and play my two Lynx carts for my Evercade.

That is the reason I purchased it,hopefully I will love the games!??

[+jeremiahjt]

The Lynx is one of only two systems (the other being the Genesis) that I cannot remember how I got it. It was a model II and I know it came from Sears as that is where we returned it after I fried it by trying a random power adapter on it.  So my guess would be that I picked it out of the Sears Wishbook.

 

I think it came with Rygar, but maybe it was just bought at the same time. Tournament Cyberball 2072 and Basketbrawl were the only two other games I had for it. Every time we went to Toys 'R' Us I tried to get NFL Football, but to no avail.

[Shawn]

I just remembered the name of the store I played the lynx at for the first time. It was Microplay, a chain of stores here in Ontario. I dunno if they where in other places but in this area they where a thing for most of the 90's and into the mid 2000's. They started closing various locations over the years with my local shop being one of the first to go.

 

[Guest]

I wanna say it was around Christmas 89' at a local Atari user group meeting. Someone at the meeting had two games to show off, Blue Lighting and California Games. So impressive! I had to have one!!

Picked one up a few years later (Lynx2) with Chips Challenge,Rygar,Electro Cop, Slime World, RoadBlasters....and a few others. My brother played Chips whenever he came over to visit. It took me years but I remember the day I beat Rygar!! Such a great game... Love the sound fx/music in that one. I still have it to this day with about 30 games... I'm still amazed how many great games released on this cat.It's so much fun to show off in person as so few people know of its existence. It's very special!!

[MrMaddog]

I remember when I first read about it in Antic magazine (for Atari 8-bit computers), at the time it was called the Atari PSC or Portable Color System.  But when the other gaming mags covered it it was offically called the Lynx and between the print ads and TV commercials I 'really' wanted one.  At the time the games were so much more advance that I couldn't understand how they got completely outsold by the "inferior" GameBoy. 

 

And it was only recently from reading old articles online that once again the Tramiels shot themselves in the foot again by screwing over the creators of the Lynx.

[joeatari1]

My first memory of the LYNX was in a Toys R Us around 1990.  I saw the display next to the Game Boy display and said to myself "Why would anyone buy a Game Boy?".  I was amazed by the Blue Lightning demo that was running on it and let my parents know I wanted one for Christmas.  They said "No, we just got you a Nintendo last year for your birthday.".  When I turned 16 in '93 I saw them on clearance and wanted to get one.  Cars are expensive though and I only had a part time job after school.  I could never save up enough.  Finally got one off E-Bay around 2001 or so.  That led to all the wonderful acquisitions you see today in my signature.

[unoclay]

Im noting a lot of people seem to cite Blue Lightning in their earliest memories.  That's funny, because i never played it when i owned my original lynx (around launch), and its one of those games that doesnt impress me much now.  Wonder what i would have thought of it back then.....luckily, anyway, slime world was my first glimpse.  Much more my style.

[+LS650]

I remember seeing them in the electronics stores "back in the day" but they were beyond my means to afford at the time.

I got into the Handy emulator much later, and then bought my first Lynx off eBay back in late 2007.