The Atari Lynx was a handheld video game console released in 1989. It had a lit colour screen, sprite scaling capabilities, very few good games, was the size of a house and used 900 AA batteries every 12 seconds. But still I love it.
If the emulator does that, it must be built with very sloppy, inefficent code. Probally calling libraries and functions it dosen't need. Maybe has a mickey slipped into it turning your phone into a node for a network of crypto-currency miners. =| The processor is so low powered in those old systems (a couple MHZ, at most), with system RAM measured in KILOBYTES, there is no way it should require a monster amount of resources to emulate
It'd be quite the struggle to actually get them safe enough to avoid the lawsuits from inevitable radiation coming from irresponsible children that didn't wear the free Lynx radsuits.
I really like the style of the standard Lynx cartridges. The combination of how sleek and thin they are with the gaudy game logos and the visible contacts at the bottom makes for a very retro-future sort of look!
Welcome to the Salty Spatoon, How tuff are ya? How tuff am I? How tuff am I?!?! I watched Ashen's Pandora handheld review all the way through. Yeah, So? *The painfully long version* Come right in!
Programming for this system was quite a chore as far i could see on the techdocs. You had to do things like turning off the CPU while the video chip was using the memory and so forth.
Ahh this takes me back. I had a Lynx 1 in 1990/1 and loved it. I was allowed to buy it with the money we made from selling Grandma's piano I stopped playing - success! I played Crystal Mines 2 and Gates of Zendocon quite a lot. Had great memories of playing Rampart via Comlynx cable with the only other guy I know who had a Lynx in my area of Sydney, Australia. When the console was no longer sold and stores were selling off stock, I got the Comlynx cable, 6-cell battery pack and the big carry case dirt cheap. Then Target had boxed games for $5 each and I managed to fill in quite a lot of gaps with unexciting games like Basketball, Tennis and Scrapyard Dog. Scored a Lynx 2 for free years later. Sold the entire collection for WAY less than I should have about ten years ago - right before the whole retro game pricing insanity we have these days. Memories...
Every time i see one of these lynx videos the nostalgia builds up inside me like a babbling mountain stream and i find myself on ebay looking for one. I know full well ill be dreadfully disappointed with it, but still i want one. The mark 1 was the only unit for me, i always thought it felt great in the hand with its chunky feel.
I got a Game Gear when they first came out... I loved it! I remember getting G-Loc, Columns and Castle of Illusion with it on Christmas Day and when I first played it, after 5 mins the batteries were dead, so imagine how happy I was when they released the rechargeable battery pack & power adaptor for that!
Learn something new every time I watch your videos. I am 30 years old and a child of the 90s. I remember the Gameboy and the GameGear but never heard of either of the Atari Lynx handheld game systems.
Most 3DS owners are usually not old enough to be able to read Technically a sound machine, but the library is abysmal, as nearly all games are either targeted at very young kids or die-hard Nintendo fans. No comparison to the PS Vita, that has a far,far superior library, but also a price tag that makes it highly undesirable too,
The Nintendo DS had a few games using the vertical screen system; one I remember personally is the rather obscure rythm game Beat City. it worked alright once you get used to it.
There's also Bookworm, and some sort of girly diary game I had as a kid that I don't remember the name of. Bookworm DS is the definitive way to play classic Bookworm, IMO, with all the additions added to it over the old Bookworm Deluxe. Only gripe I have with it is that it didn't account for the comfort of lefties. Weird oversight considering it's as easy as flipping the screen upside down. Something pretty much every other game I've seen with that "hold the DS sideways like a book" orientation has the option, like Rhythm Heaven.
Thank you very much for these retrospective videos Ashens! Especially with this one, I learned so much about the Lynx. I guess it really is a misunderstood species of a handheld, oh well
Slime World was pretty much the only game that supported that wild daisy chain idea. Up to 8 players IIRC. I also remember reading that the giant Lynx 1 was so huge due to focus testing.
I really love your videos, I find there's something oddly comforting about your brown sofa and tat, its such a nice escape from the stressfulness of life. I often listen to your videos while I fall asleep because they're so wonderfully dull.
This is quite a classy console! Even the cartridge looks very high-tech compared to everything else at the time. Shame it didn't catch on, because the graphics looks incredible for its time. Definitely looks better than even GBC could be compared with GBA even!
This thing predates my existence, but it still brings me nostalgia, due to having a father who enjoys collecting old Atari hardware. I still have not managed to figure out California Games, though. Damn that wave... Great video as always, Ashens!
I bought one in 1989 at a Toys R Us with my own money. Spent hours playing road blasters, klax, california games, blue lightning and others. Back then as a gaming fanatic you really appreciated this thing..
3:06 "it is the only console I can think of that has games on it you play vertically" hey man, let's not forget the classic Brain Training for the Nintendo DS! Or have you not been training your brain?! DR Kawashima will be disappointed
ffishfinger And the Wonderswan! Such a wonderful little handheld. You have heard of the Wonderswan right? If not, I understand, not many people know what a Wonderswan is.
I remember wanting an Atari Lynx, but never being able to afford one back in the day. I do not regret having my money going elsewhere whatsoever. Keep doing what you do, good sir. Many thanks.
Man, you really had me hyped for that Blue Lightning footage. I was imagining it shifting to a top-down view of the ship as you flew over the city or something like that. Great video, though. I always love it when you do game console reviews like this, taking a look at all the accessories, games, different models etc. Can't wait for the next part.
Two reasons: price and battery life. Even though the Atari Lynx and the Sega Game Gear both had superior screens to the Gameboy, they both required 6 AA batteries and were generally more expensive to manufacture. The Gameboy's monochrome screen and lack of backlight meant that it could get roughly double the battery life of it's competitors while only requiring 2-4 batteries (depending on if it was the pocket version or the original). The GBA SP was the first one to use a lithium ion battery so Nintendo finally had some wiggle room to add in the backlight without sacrificing much battery life.
They were quite dismissive of color in the face of the Lynx and GameGear - due to the massive battery drain it created. I seem to remember a comment from Nintendo along the lines of "There will be no Color Gameboy until we can get close to 10 hours out of a set of batteries" - And they did. Backlight was likely the same issue.
Best way to spend my birthday morning. Watching a 20 minute long Ashens video. Don't worry Stuart, I'm one of the phew people who watch all your videos all the way through.
It's a beautiful system. I bought one solely off of how stuart raved about it in a gameboy special. (I shelled out 60 USD / 48 GBP on blind faith! had it shipped from japan and all!) and it was worth it!
I always watch your videos to the end. Doing my part to help your analytics. A buddy of mine had a Lynx when we were kids. I swear he only showed us it once because we all had Game Gears and game Boys and were obviously way cooler. It was a beast of a handheld machine though.
I love how the french translation of the external battery pack is "le pack batteries". They just added "le" like it was already some sort of meme that if you add "le" to anything it becomes French ^^
I hope you'll mention the display mod in the next video, which will give the Lynx I/II an excellent display and an optional VGA output. Doesn't improve battery life but is a nice way to play Lynx games. Display quality is very close to emulation with this display, only downside is that some hi-color homebrew demos won't work. There's also an Everdrive-like micro sd card flash drive for both Lynxs.
The lynx1!!!!!! Me and my brother had one, bought by our parents when they were sold off for cheap after the systems was declared dead. It was fun, especially NHL hockey, and linking it to one another. Good times back in the day.
I really love the form factor of the cartridges. They are nice and thin and that little lip on them is a nice elegant solution to use to pull them out.
Also, technically the Lynx was the first true 16 bit portable, the Game Gear and Gameboy were both 8 bit (the TurboExpress was one of those "put two 8 bit processors under the hood and call it 16" deals).
You might want to do your research. It came out in JAPAN in 1987. NOT THE US. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboGrafx-16 The CD only caught on because the Sega CD was sucking ass at the time... And I used to QA for Sega.
Wow I cannot believe Blue Lightning I remembered that game as looking amazing that game blew us all away when we first got our Lynx . Just shows you how bad our memories are I truly remembered that game as looking better than Master System & NES games. My jaw hit the floor when Stuart showed that footage lol.
I owned the original, but it crapped out after a week. They exchanged it for a lynx 2. I still own it and all of the accessories. Thanks for this walk down memory lane. Booted it up last year and realized that I should have left well enough alone.
The Lynx is a great handheld. Very handy. I’ve had a lynx 2 for a while but recently ordered a lynx 1 from telegames. Cheers for the video and keep on gaming 👍
I bought one (Lynx2) for my wife right before she went to Korea (circa 1992). It's a great system, much overlooked. We never had any complaints with it. We still have it to this day and it still works a treat. We bought it with the case and have most of the games, the better ones anyway.
Don't ever believe that your fans aren't watching every second of every upload to the end. Quality over quantity, mate! Personally I enjoy your lengthy videos a lot more than the short what's-in-the-plastic-egg-or-crap-bag videos ..
I was in high school back when these came out. It doesn't seem like such a long time ago until I see stuff like this! California Games brought back a lot of memories though. I didn't have a Lynx, but I did have it on the Commodore 128 & played that for more hours than I can count.
Awesome video (as usual). I remember the Lynx when I was back in school. The Game Boy just became very popular finally, then THAT ONE pupil in class got his shiny, new Atari Lynx, and as we all we were blown away by the colourful graphics and (sound) effects. Well ... some time later the same kid in school came back with a Game Boy, he actrually traded in his Lynx for it :/ Poor Atari, if that thing succeeded more ands/or got more really good games.
WH250398 www.google.ca/search?q=Dildo&client=ms-android-bell-ca&source=lnms&prmd=ivsn&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBirCC7fbRAhXF8CYKHUXDC8QQ_AUIBygB&biw=360&bih=512&dpr=4.......there ya go
Ooh, been waiting for this! Bought one on a whim last year and I've loved it! It's just so fascinating to me and has lots of fun little games. I've been curious to see your thoughts on it since I know you've mentioned reviewing it before.
Funny.. The lynx is considered hilariously huge, with piss poor battery life, at roughly 10" x 4" with 4 hours of battery life... Yet we've now got he new portable Nintendo Switch coming out, with dimensions of roughly 10" x 4" with 3-4 hours of battery life....... We've come a long way!
(Reliably) rechargeable Li-Ion batteries greatly changed people's tolerance for low battery life. If the battery runs out on something like a Lynx, you have to go to the store (inconvenient) to buy (costs a lotta money) another set of six AA's. Rechargable batteries did exist, but since they were Ni-Cd, they were often *pretty fucking bad*. And needed to be unplugged from the device in order to charge. This is why the GameBoy was so tempting. It was a billion years behind its competitors in raw tech, and also quite bulky -- But it would give you a whole day worth of play from a pack of batteries. -- If the Switch's (or any modern handheld device's) battery runs out, you just plug it in. You can even play it plugged in if you are home or whatever, and the battery will charge up, getting it ready for your next play-session in handheld mode. As for size... Well, the Lynx was 99% bezel. These days portable devices have huuuge screens. Going back to, say, the DS (not even that old) nowadays can feel __weird__. The screen is tiny and I feel like I'm squinting at it.
Great video =D You can also now get a new much clearer LCD screen mod for the Lynx 1 and 2! I know you said you can play all the games because you have a full set, but there's quite a bit of homebrew and stuff for the Lynx - which you can run from SainTs SD Cart. I also love the Lynx, despite its flaws as you said.
