9 ms·

New games for the Atari Lynx

150 points by ikromin 7y ago

vanadium 7y ago
Retro gamer/collector here that’s been in and out of the Jaguar scene since the ‘93 launch, and I can say this with the utmost respect: Atari systems don’t die, they just go into the public domain where they tend to live forever on an inexhaustible well of community involvement. The Jaguar and Lynx both have a _lot_ of activity every year, and this one more than usual.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  It it possible to play the Lynx games on original hardware?
  - vanadium 7y ago
    There’s a Lynx SD flash cart out there by RetroHQ that would allow for it; he’s a one man wrecking crew though with a bunch of other flash carts on the market so inventory’s hard to get. But yeah, it’s an option.
- codesushi42 7y ago
  True, the Jaguar is disproportionately popular in the homebrew community compared to how many units it sold.
  - dmix 7y ago
    Why is that? I tried watching the Angry Nerd review of Jaguar and it was all negative. Is it because it had some good under-utilized hardware?
    - vanadium 7y ago
      Pretty much; very few homebrew groups out there have been able to do much with the hardware except to complete previously unreleased games. However, there’re a lot of Atari ST ports coming from AtariAge, and a good half-dozen homebrew titles of variant quality being sold on physical cartridges (and CDs for that vanishingly small demographic) each year. YMMV.
      - dmix 7y ago
        Interesting, I've been meaning to play Another World on a retro system...
    - codesushi42 7y ago
      Yeah, partly that. Here is a quote from John Carmack on the Jaguar hardware design: Skilled programmer Steven Scavone, key member of 3D Stooges which released Gorf, still develops for Jaguar. Comparing it to systems he’s worked on, Scavone elaborated on tech-specs, also explaining in laymen’s terms. “It should be coded in as much assembler as possible. This machine flies when fuelled by assembler. The RISCs in proper concert with the 68k will do some absolutely amazing graphics. The Jaguar could [utterly] crush any 2D system. It’s a lot easier to program 2D for than the PSX or N64. You can thank the Tramiels for it being ‘underpowered’. The chips were not complete and had bugs. The designers, who weren’t experts in silicon design, missed fundamentals. Just one more register and [it could have run without stalling all the time]! If they [had fixed this], the Jag would have blown away the PSX. Later 3D titles like Battlesphere proved that systems at the time were no match for it. https://steemit.com/gaming/@alexbeyman/john-carmack-s-thoughts-on-the-atari-jaguar https://steemit.com/gaming/@alexbeyman/john-carmack-s-though... Another problem was that the Jaguar included a Motorola 68000, the same processor in the Sega Genesis. Why was that an issue? A lot of developers would simply implement their games against that CPU because it was well documented without utilizing the Tom/Jerry CPUs. That led to a lot of the Jag's library looking no better, and even worse than its 16-bit competition. That made the Jag look like a joke to gamers since it was being touted as a 64-bit machine. Not many consoles got as much abuse from the gaming community in the States as the Jag back in the day. Though with the failures of the 32X, Virtual Boy, and 3DO (and later the Saturn), everyone was getting 3D wrong until Sony showed up to the party. And all of those consoles failed partly because of poor hardware design. So maybe Atari can be cut some slack here.
      - Grazester 7y ago
        I dont have much love for Atari and the Jaguar from false advertising about it being a 64 bit machine to its flawed hardware. Yes the Saturn did have a flaw in the implementation in how the dual processor were tacked together at last minute but there were many factors that affected the way things turned out for the Saturn. Some are: 1) The surprise launch when Sega started to panicked about the PSX which caught everyone off guard and not in a good way 2) Not very many titles at lunch. 3) Retailers angry about the surprise lunch and system allocation and some vowed never to carry Saturn period(which they really never carried). 4) A terrible first generation development kit which was huge clunky, ineffective and expensive(something like 50K). This lead to a lot of devs having to write their own tools. The PSX dev kits were apparently amazing in comparison. It didn't help that the system used quads and not polygons. Of course Sega had massive experience in the Arcade with 3D title using quads but that was on powerful expensive hardware. 5) Gamers were burnt by the SegaCD and 32X addon which Sega dropped support for in no time. 6)$400 price tag Despite this Saturn was not a true failure. In Japan it sold very well. The Dreamcast however can be categorized as a true failure despite Sega getting just about everything right with the system. It was just too late. They didnt have the cash to keep the system going and fight the Sony hype machine.
    - rasz 7y ago
      Hardware was good on paper, but broken by design. Even SDK shipped by Atari had buggy compiler not accounting for defects.
- sehugg 7y ago
  Atari 7800, too. Even though only about 100K were produced.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Old Computers Never Die - Their Users Do!
megaremote 7y ago
You can see the games here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQEBn4wORw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQEBn4wORw
- ikromin 7y ago
  Oh man that's awesome! Didn't even know that this video was out there! Could you get in touch please (via Twitter - @theatarigamer)
  - bane 7y ago
    This youtube channel is awesome. He regularly shows off new games for old systems.
- Kenji 7y ago
  Good lord, Growing Ties is brilliant!
- Yhippa 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I wish true portable consoles would come back but I guess the rest of the world didn't want them to.
  - siquick 7y ago
    Nintendo Switch?
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    There's a ton of them coming out of China: https://obscurehandhelds.com https://obscurehandhelds.com
  - fragmede 7y ago
    With the exception of the Nintendo Switch, portable consoles died due to the cost of all-custom hardware and the rise of smartphones and tablets. Bluetooth controllers can even be paired to phones and used in some games. Besides, other than Nintendo, who would even make such a thing? (And it should be noted, Ninentdo has two entries here - they're still producing the 2DS XL version of the Nintendo DS.) Sega's got out of the hardware business, thanks to Sony's shenanigans. Microsoft has a portable gaming system with the (x86) Microsoft Surface. Not a "true" console, as it runs windows and not a heavily locked down GameOS, but some would consider that a plus. Sony stopped production on the PSP Vita only earlier this year, so it's only freshly dead and shows Sony hung onto the idea of a true portable console for as long as possible. An interesting entrant into the area, though, is Nvidia, with their Shield. Discontinued, it was still an interesting product. Thing is, it leaned on Android for its operating system, but that's not to say smartphones killed "true portable consoles", but that Android broadened the base upon which portable consoles could be made. There are a handful of handheld game devices that could not have existed before.
thom 7y ago
The Lynx is one of my favourite machines ever. Satisfying and chunky, great sound and music, and some really impressive games like Warbirds which was a flight sim with with a polygonal world and pseudo-3D sprites. Kudos to those involved with this effort (and the wider scene), but I've still got a unit that runs after all these years, and I'll be very sad when the actual hardware dies and only emulators remain.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  > Satisfying and chunky, Which model did you have? I had the short fat one. > Warbirds which was a flight sim with with a polygonal world and pseudo-3D sprites. Both my brother, I and two of our friends had the Lynx. It was pretty magical setting up that token ring network cable and playing games like Todd's Slimeworld 4 way.
  - theflyingkiwi42 7y ago
    Warbirds and Slimeworld :) The memories just came flooding back. Loved that machine!
- vanadium 7y ago
  Retrofitting an LCD screen into one makes it a lot better visually and easier on the battery life. Easy to tear down and repair, to boot.
  - nolok 7y ago
    What tech was the original using for its screen ?
    - ofibrvev 7y ago
      It uses an LCD, a lowres super twist shit one and it uses a CCFL backlight which eats battery. So replacing it with a different active matrix LCD with LED backlight can improve battery life and quality (double res)
djmips 7y ago
Anyone know how people are making homebrew Lynx carts? (The actual physical plastic and electronics part)
- monocasa 7y ago
  Here's how some people are doing it: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/120824-lynx-eprom-cart/ https://atariage.com/forums/topic/120824-lynx-eprom-cart/
- cptskippy 7y ago
  The cart was a plastic card with a PCB inlay and a sticker over top. Seems like you could 3rd print the card part pretty easily. The hard part would be the PCB.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    PCBs can be ordered very cheaply online https://dirtypcbs.com/store/pcbs https://dirtypcbs.com/store/pcbs You could order 100 for $50
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ikromin 7y ago
  Yes, you need one of these - https://atarigamer.com/pages/lynx-cart-programmer-pi-hat https://atarigamer.com/pages/lynx-cart-programmer-pi-hat
  - vanadium 7y ago
    Didn’t even realize about the Pi Hat. Thanks for this!
Kenji 7y ago
Over Quota... Hug of death. https://web.archive.org/web/20190909221003/https://atarigamer.com/articles/in-2019-we-have-eleven-new-games-for-the-atari-lynx https://web.archive.org/web/20190909221003/https://atarigame...
codesushi42 7y ago
Admittedly I have never tried the real hardware, only emulators. I wasn't even aware of the Lynx's existence during my youth until years after its demise. I have seen the unit on a few occasions out in the wild though. On paper, the hardware looks amazing and was way ahead of any portable game system at the time. Not only could it display in color, but it also supported scaling and rotation effects. The story of its creators, Epyx, is a sad one though. Epyx was traditionally a software company, not hardware, having released hit games like "California Games". They signed a deal with Atari that basically gave Atari the rights to delay releases of Epyx software for any QA issues Atari found. Atari was being run by Commodore founder Jack Tramiel at this point, and he was known for his shady business practices. Atari abused this part of the contract with Epyx, forcing Epyx to delay their software releases until the company was bled dry. And then Atari took what was left of Epyx for a bargain, including ownership of what would become the Atari Lynx (originally the "Handy"): Facing financial difficulties, Epyx sought out partners. Nintendo, Sega, and other companies declined, but Atari Corp. and Epyx eventually agreed that Atari Corp. would handle production and marketing, while Epyx would handle software development. Epyx declared bankruptcy by the end of the year, and Atari essentially owned the entire project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx#History I am glad that Atari imploded a few years later. Good riddance. Sega also ended up lifting a lot of the Lynx's design for the Game Gear after the Handy was pitched to them by Epyx. There is also an amusing story about how Epyx's pitch to Nintendo of Japan went terribly wrong, though I can't find it now.
- tkjef 7y ago
  the Game Gear was awesome! obsessed over the writeup for that in Consumer Reports for Kids until i could save up for one.
  - ngold 7y ago
    The game gear was awesome. When the lynx came out it was pretty neat, sorta. I had one friend with one. But it paled in comparison to even the game boy, which had tons of games.
- RickSanchez2600 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
RickSanchez2600 7y ago
I had an Atari Lynx and about 30 games. I had a carrying case and wall adapter as well because it ate batteries like crazy. I gave it to a friend who had a computer museum. There is an emulator for Lynx games here: https://atariage.com/Lynx/emulation/index.html https://atariage.com/Lynx/emulation/index.html It reminded me of a hand held Amiga or Atari ST even if it had a different chipset.
drago137 7y ago
Tse wonderful)

150 points by ikromin 7y ago

Retro gamer/collector here that’s been in and out of the Jaguar scene since the ‘93 launch, and I can say this with the utmost respect: Atari systems don’t die, they just go into the public domain where they tend to live forever on an inexhaustible well of community involvement. The Jaguar and Lynx both have a _lot_ of activity every year, and this one more than usual.

cptskippy 7y ago
It it possible to play the Lynx games on original hardware?
- vanadium 7y ago
  There’s a Lynx SD flash cart out there by RetroHQ that would allow for it; he’s a one man wrecking crew though with a bunch of other flash carts on the market so inventory’s hard to get. But yeah, it’s an option.
codesushi42 7y ago
True, the Jaguar is disproportionately popular in the homebrew community compared to how many units it sold.
- dmix 7y ago
  Why is that? I tried watching the Angry Nerd review of Jaguar and it was all negative. Is it because it had some good under-utilized hardware?
  - vanadium 7y ago
    Pretty much; very few homebrew groups out there have been able to do much with the hardware except to complete previously unreleased games. However, there’re a lot of Atari ST ports coming from AtariAge, and a good half-dozen homebrew titles of variant quality being sold on physical cartridges (and CDs for that vanishingly small demographic) each year. YMMV.
    - dmix 7y ago
      Interesting, I've been meaning to play Another World on a retro system...
  - codesushi42 7y ago
    Yeah, partly that. Here is a quote from John Carmack on the Jaguar hardware design: Skilled programmer Steven Scavone, key member of 3D Stooges which released Gorf, still develops for Jaguar. Comparing it to systems he’s worked on, Scavone elaborated on tech-specs, also explaining in laymen’s terms. “It should be coded in as much assembler as possible. This machine flies when fuelled by assembler. The RISCs in proper concert with the 68k will do some absolutely amazing graphics. The Jaguar could [utterly] crush any 2D system. It’s a lot easier to program 2D for than the PSX or N64. You can thank the Tramiels for it being ‘underpowered’. The chips were not complete and had bugs. The designers, who weren’t experts in silicon design, missed fundamentals. Just one more register and [it could have run without stalling all the time]! If they [had fixed this], the Jag would have blown away the PSX. Later 3D titles like Battlesphere proved that systems at the time were no match for it. https://steemit.com/gaming/@alexbeyman/john-carmack-s-thoughts-on-the-atari-jaguar https://steemit.com/gaming/@alexbeyman/john-carmack-s-though... Another problem was that the Jaguar included a Motorola 68000, the same processor in the Sega Genesis. Why was that an issue? A lot of developers would simply implement their games against that CPU because it was well documented without utilizing the Tom/Jerry CPUs. That led to a lot of the Jag's library looking no better, and even worse than its 16-bit competition. That made the Jag look like a joke to gamers since it was being touted as a 64-bit machine. Not many consoles got as much abuse from the gaming community in the States as the Jag back in the day. Though with the failures of the 32X, Virtual Boy, and 3DO (and later the Saturn), everyone was getting 3D wrong until Sony showed up to the party. And all of those consoles failed partly because of poor hardware design. So maybe Atari can be cut some slack here.
    - Grazester 7y ago
      I dont have much love for Atari and the Jaguar from false advertising about it being a 64 bit machine to its flawed hardware. Yes the Saturn did have a flaw in the implementation in how the dual processor were tacked together at last minute but there were many factors that affected the way things turned out for the Saturn. Some are: 1) The surprise launch when Sega started to panicked about the PSX which caught everyone off guard and not in a good way 2) Not very many titles at lunch. 3) Retailers angry about the surprise lunch and system allocation and some vowed never to carry Saturn period(which they really never carried). 4) A terrible first generation development kit which was huge clunky, ineffective and expensive(something like 50K). This lead to a lot of devs having to write their own tools. The PSX dev kits were apparently amazing in comparison. It didn't help that the system used quads and not polygons. Of course Sega had massive experience in the Arcade with 3D title using quads but that was on powerful expensive hardware. 5) Gamers were burnt by the SegaCD and 32X addon which Sega dropped support for in no time. 6)$400 price tag Despite this Saturn was not a true failure. In Japan it sold very well. The Dreamcast however can be categorized as a true failure despite Sega getting just about everything right with the system. It was just too late. They didnt have the cash to keep the system going and fight the Sony hype machine.
  - rasz 7y ago
    Hardware was good on paper, but broken by design. Even SDK shipped by Atari had buggy compiler not accounting for defects.
sehugg 7y ago
Atari 7800, too. Even though only about 100K were produced.
fit2rule 7y ago
Old Computers Never Die - Their Users Do!

megaremote 7y ago

You can see the games here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQEBn4wORw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQEBn4wORw

ikromin 7y ago
Oh man that's awesome! Didn't even know that this video was out there! Could you get in touch please (via Twitter - @theatarigamer)
- bane 7y ago
  This youtube channel is awesome. He regularly shows off new games for old systems.
Kenji 7y ago
Good lord, Growing Ties is brilliant!
Yhippa 7y ago
Thanks for sharing. I wish true portable consoles would come back but I guess the rest of the world didn't want them to.
- siquick 7y ago
  Nintendo Switch?
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  There's a ton of them coming out of China: https://obscurehandhelds.com https://obscurehandhelds.com
- fragmede 7y ago
  With the exception of the Nintendo Switch, portable consoles died due to the cost of all-custom hardware and the rise of smartphones and tablets. Bluetooth controllers can even be paired to phones and used in some games. Besides, other than Nintendo, who would even make such a thing? (And it should be noted, Ninentdo has two entries here - they're still producing the 2DS XL version of the Nintendo DS.) Sega's got out of the hardware business, thanks to Sony's shenanigans. Microsoft has a portable gaming system with the (x86) Microsoft Surface. Not a "true" console, as it runs windows and not a heavily locked down GameOS, but some would consider that a plus. Sony stopped production on the PSP Vita only earlier this year, so it's only freshly dead and shows Sony hung onto the idea of a true portable console for as long as possible. An interesting entrant into the area, though, is Nvidia, with their Shield. Discontinued, it was still an interesting product. Thing is, it leaned on Android for its operating system, but that's not to say smartphones killed "true portable consoles", but that Android broadened the base upon which portable consoles could be made. There are a handful of handheld game devices that could not have existed before.

thom 7y ago

The Lynx is one of my favourite machines ever. Satisfying and chunky, great sound and music, and some really impressive games like Warbirds which was a flight sim with with a polygonal world and pseudo-3D sprites. Kudos to those involved with this effort (and the wider scene), but I've still got a unit that runs after all these years, and I'll be very sad when the actual hardware dies and only emulators remain.

cptskippy 7y ago
> Satisfying and chunky, Which model did you have? I had the short fat one. > Warbirds which was a flight sim with with a polygonal world and pseudo-3D sprites. Both my brother, I and two of our friends had the Lynx. It was pretty magical setting up that token ring network cable and playing games like Todd's Slimeworld 4 way.
- theflyingkiwi42 7y ago
  Warbirds and Slimeworld :) The memories just came flooding back. Loved that machine!
vanadium 7y ago
Retrofitting an LCD screen into one makes it a lot better visually and easier on the battery life. Easy to tear down and repair, to boot.
- nolok 7y ago
  What tech was the original using for its screen ?
  - ofibrvev 7y ago
    It uses an LCD, a lowres super twist shit one and it uses a CCFL backlight which eats battery. So replacing it with a different active matrix LCD with LED backlight can improve battery life and quality (double res)

djmips 7y ago

Anyone know how people are making homebrew Lynx carts? (The actual physical plastic and electronics part)

monocasa 7y ago
Here's how some people are doing it: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/120824-lynx-eprom-cart/ https://atariage.com/forums/topic/120824-lynx-eprom-cart/
cptskippy 7y ago
The cart was a plastic card with a PCB inlay and a sticker over top. Seems like you could 3rd print the card part pretty easily. The hard part would be the PCB.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  PCBs can be ordered very cheaply online https://dirtypcbs.com/store/pcbs https://dirtypcbs.com/store/pcbs You could order 100 for $50
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ikromin 7y ago
Yes, you need one of these - https://atarigamer.com/pages/lynx-cart-programmer-pi-hat https://atarigamer.com/pages/lynx-cart-programmer-pi-hat
- vanadium 7y ago
  Didn’t even realize about the Pi Hat. Thanks for this!

Kenji 7y ago

Over Quota... Hug of death. https://web.archive.org/web/20190909221003/https://atarigamer.com/articles/in-2019-we-have-eleven-new-games-for-the-atari-lynx https://web.archive.org/web/20190909221003/https://atarigame...

codesushi42 7y ago

Admittedly I have never tried the real hardware, only emulators. I wasn't even aware of the Lynx's existence during my youth until years after its demise. I have seen the unit on a few occasions out in the wild though. On paper, the hardware looks amazing and was way ahead of any portable game system at the time. Not only could it display in color, but it also supported scaling and rotation effects. The story of its creators, Epyx, is a sad one though. Epyx was traditionally a software company, not hardware, having released hit games like "California Games". They signed a deal with Atari that basically gave Atari the rights to delay releases of Epyx software for any QA issues Atari found. Atari was being run by Commodore founder Jack Tramiel at this point, and he was known for his shady business practices. Atari abused this part of the contract with Epyx, forcing Epyx to delay their software releases until the company was bled dry. And then Atari took what was left of Epyx for a bargain, including ownership of what would become the Atari Lynx (originally the "Handy"): Facing financial difficulties, Epyx sought out partners. Nintendo, Sega, and other companies declined, but Atari Corp. and Epyx eventually agreed that Atari Corp. would handle production and marketing, while Epyx would handle software development. Epyx declared bankruptcy by the end of the year, and Atari essentially owned the entire project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx#History I am glad that Atari imploded a few years later. Good riddance. Sega also ended up lifting a lot of the Lynx's design for the Game Gear after the Handy was pitched to them by Epyx. There is also an amusing story about how Epyx's pitch to Nintendo of Japan went terribly wrong, though I can't find it now.

tkjef 7y ago
the Game Gear was awesome! obsessed over the writeup for that in Consumer Reports for Kids until i could save up for one.
- ngold 7y ago
  The game gear was awesome. When the lynx came out it was pretty neat, sorta. I had one friend with one. But it paled in comparison to even the game boy, which had tons of games.
RickSanchez2600 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

RickSanchez2600 7y ago

I had an Atari Lynx and about 30 games. I had a carrying case and wall adapter as well because it ate batteries like crazy. I gave it to a friend who had a computer museum. There is an emulator for Lynx games here: https://atariage.com/Lynx/emulation/index.html https://atariage.com/Lynx/emulation/index.html It reminded me of a hand held Amiga or Atari ST even if it had a different chipset.

drago137 7y ago

Tse wonderful)