Could lynx play any other Atari System games

[wapchimp]

Instead of ports could the lynx have a convertor to play 2600, 5200 games etc - gamegear/master system style

[thund3r]

to put it simply. no

[wapchimp]

I thought so.

 

Why didn't atari think about doing this?

[+davidcalgary29]

Atari didn't develop the Lynx -- it was an Epyx steal -- and it wouldn't have made any economic sense to do so. The only portable system that might have been emulated -- the GameBoy -- was the main competitor of the Lynx, and Nintendo would not have been happy with any copyright violations. The Lynx couldn't have handled emulation of any other home console at the time regardless of its design, I think. Having some type of emu mode would have pushed the design costs (and eventual price) sky-high.

[+davidcalgary29]

And I doubt that there would have been a market for a "portable 2600" in 1989, as the market was primed for more sophisticated arcade adaptations. If you look at the Lynx library, you can see that many of its weaker links are in its ports of early '80s games. "Ms. Pac-Man", "Joust", and "Robotron: 2084" all look great, but playability on all three is somewhat stale and makes you wish that they'd added a "super" or "2000" mode, just as they did with "Battlezone".