Getting the Lynx on the big screen

[doctorclu]

Well, it came up in the Atari Hangout chat on Sunday... someone tried to hook a camera to the Lynx to view it on a TV.

 

Now this had me interested, and I have a Lynx, just to complete the collection, and for this I got my Lynx Mark I out (the best as far as I'm concerned), plugged in Chip's Challenge, got a A/V camera going, and next thing I knew, I was playing the Lynx on a big screen... crudely.

 

The problem is, you play the Lynx this way, you shake the Lynx when hitting the buttons to play, thus messing up the image on the screen.

 

So you can either set up a real stable mounting system for the camera to the Lynx... or rig an external controller.

 

OR... for those that have a working Lynx (extra) but not a working screen, how about setting up a video out port?

 

The Lynx already has the Audio out with the headphone jack, so say you didn't want to have the little screen working... what would it take to wire up a video out jack?

 

Has anyone tried this? Does anyone have the schematic for what the cable from the motherboard to the screen does?

 

Or has anyone tried wiring up an external controller?

 

I remember Wiztronics was going to do a connector to display on the screen. How did that work?

 

So many fun questions...

[Matthias]

Hello!

 

    Now this had me interested, and I have a Lynx, just to complete the collection, and for this I got my Lynx Mark I out (the best as far as I'm concerned), plugged in Chip's Challenge, got a A/V camera going, and next thing I knew, I was playing the Lynx on a big screen... crudely.

 

    The problem is, you play the Lynx this way, you shake the Lynx when hitting the buttons to play, thus messing up the image on the screen.

 

I think i warned you about this

 

    So you can either set up a real stable mounting system for the camera to the Lynx... or rig an external controller.

 

Do both things for best results

 

    OR... for those that have a working Lynx (extra) but not a working screen, how about setting up a video out port?

....

    I remember Wiztronics was going to do a connector to display on the screen.  How did that work?

 

There is no "video"-signal produced inside the Lynx, the screen-pixels are streamed as digital-data directly to the LCD-matrix. So you would have to get access to that data-stream and then to create an analog video-signal out of it (Look at the pictures at Whiztronic's-website about their device to get a clue how complex this task is). And the Lynx I and II use different LCD-screen-types.

 

Bye!

Matthias

[Harry_Dodgson]

On a different way to accomplish the same thing...

 

I was going to make a front-projection Lynx once. I have a couple large lenses that I was going to secure the lynx LCD to then shine a 150 Watt halogen lamp through. My problem was building a case to put it in. I wanted something that would work in any rotation. To control it, I was going to use a Lynx II w/o most of the electronics and a cable wired to the projection unit. A more promising idea would be to find an old LCD computer projector and replace its LCD with the one from a Lynx. It would only play horizontal games, but that's most of them.

[Matthias]

Hello Harry!

 

On a different way to accomplish the same thing...

 

I was going to make a front-projection Lynx once.  I have a couple large lenses that I was going to secure the lynx LCD to then shine a 150 Watt halogen lamp through.  My problem was building a case to put it in.  I wanted something that would work in any rotation.  To control it, I was going to use a Lynx II w/o most of the electronics and a cable wired to the projection unit.  A more promising idea would be to find an old LCD computer projector and replace its LCD with the one from a Lynx.  It would only play horizontal games, but that's most of them.

 

 

Right, that was the other doable option, but although i was able to download several Do-it-yourself-recipes i was still afraid that this was more difficult than using the video-camera (although i didn't thougth about the vertical-screen-games at that time, this would have scared me even more!).

 

Some time we should find a solution for this, it would make demoing new Lynx-games at Shows (like the Jagfests) much easier.

 

Bye!

Matthias

[Songbird]

I know this doesn't work for all games, but you could demo the games on a laptop (with or without projector) using Handy.

[Harry_Dodgson]

I know this doesn't work for all games, but you could demo the games on a laptop (with or without projector) using Handy.

 

You are far more trusting with your laptop than I am.

 

I haven't checked lately... Does the current version of Handy support any alternate input schemes? I'd be more inclined to do that if I could put the CPU/display in a safe spot and just pass around an inexpensive controller.

[Gregory DG]

I haven't checked lately... Does the current version of Handy support any alternate input schemes?

You can't use the joypad to select and start games, if that's what you mean. You still have to select your game with the mouse.

 

But you can play the game itself with any joy pad/stick.

[TailChao]

Using a camera and simple A/V hookup can be fine at times, especially with the lynx II, as if you place it face up with the rubber grips upon a good surface it won't wobble extensively, although the control is quite irritating to use in this way.

[Songbird]

You are far more trusting with your laptop than I am.

 

Heh... I didn't say I've done this, it's just a thought. And if I were to do this, I'd probably do two things: 1) use a steel security cable to prevent the laptop from walking off, and 2) only use it to demo some new/lost/rare game at specific times, so people aren't touching the laptop nonstop. Let them play the game on a real Lynx if they just want to mess around for a few minutes; only use the laptop to show off something unusual to a group of people at one time.