Games That Push The Limits of the Atari Lynx

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Yes in case anyone notices, I meant to say the Lynx CPU is more than twice as fast as the NES, not just twice as fast. It's 4Mhz and the NES is 1.79 Mhz NTSC.
Also the game is called Warbirds with an s on the end. That somehow got swallowed when I said it.
The Atari Lynx, it's a weird one isn't it? An odd duck inside and out and I'm going to be, as I always do, taking a look at some of the games that push it to the limit!
Games Featured and general index:
00:00 Intro
00:28 Blue Lightning
03:20 Warbirds
03:56 Paying the bills with a Hunting Clash promotion
05:21 Back to Warbirds
07:27 Stun Runner
11:00 Shadow of the Beast
14:59 Hard Drivin'
16:28 Steel Talons
17:08 Luchsenstein 3D
18:53 Battle Wheels
19:48 Road Blasters
20:24 Rampage
21:17 Ending waffle

[@Sharopolis]

Download Hunting Clash For Free! ✅ mtchm.de/dd82m

[@johntammaro]

Have to say I'm quite sad to see a game that promotes shooting of animals for fun. I'm not vegan or other, yes I eat meat occasionally but still hunting animals is a horrific past time of the human race. Soon we will have no elephants or tigers left in the world so we can stack their natural riches on our manual pieces as trophies.

[@stewartfennell8926]

Never had a lynx myself but my brothers friend had one with Batman Returns. It was so advanced compared to my game boy

[@ScratchedWinter]

@@johntammaro yeah that was one grim looking game

[@thealterlion7163]

@@johntammaro I mean small youtubers do have a hard time finding sponsors, so if he has to add dubious sponsors in his videos to keep making great videos, I have no problem with it

[@misterhat5823]

No thanks. Mid-roll ads suck.

[@markusjuenemann]

"Luchsenstein" (Looksenshtein...) is easy to explain: "Luchs" (Looks) is the german word for "Lynx". So this pun makes perfect sense.

[@theadamtron]

The thing to remember about the resolution on the Atari Lynx is that the blury screen blended the pixels together making it look less pixelated than it was.

[@alexojideagu]

Yes, that's why I hate it being shown as pixellated in videos. People should use a scanline filter in videos.

[@Moryo7]

@@alexojideagu but what if someone happens to prefer the raw pixels? There's nothing wrong with liking it either way. It's all personal preference.

[@alexojideagu]

@@Moryo7 That's not what it looked like on the console, it's giving a false impression and in many cases makes the games look worse. If you want to do that in private go ahead, but many young people never saw what it actually looked like in real life and it's giving a false (I would say bad) impression.

[@hayaokakizaki4463]

@@alexojideagu Don't act like blurry ass handheld screens from the 90s look better than unfiltered emulation, you're either blinded by nostalgia or trolling.

[@alexojideagu]

@@hayaokakizaki4463 Yes they do look better, I had a real Atari Lynx 2, and these unfiltered Lego emulation videos look ugly as hell. You're deluded if you think they look better. That's not what they were meant to look like. The Surfing wave effect in California Games is a perfect example. It doesn't even WORK with unfiltered emulation. The same with Sonic the Hedgehog water transparency effects.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

For those discussing the Lynx screen: Dave Needle said they had a tough time with the display, tested all types of glass, all looked lousy, none of the Japanese companies wanted anything to do with them. Then thanks to Citizen, they discovered a new type of glass, one Citizen had yet to even use on their TV range and they got on well with them.

[@rorychivers8769]

Citizen had probably just been ghosted by Nintendo at that point, they were supposed to be involved with the Game Boy

[@ExtremeWreck]

" none of the Japanese companies wanted anything to do with them." Pretty sure Japan has more friendly ties with the USA than South Korea, right?

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@ExtremeWreck you'd need to ask Needle to elaborate further, that was the explanation he gave at the time.

[@fattomandeibu]

@@ExtremeWreck Was less US/Japan relations, as much as Atari had a poor rep in Japan.

[@ExtremeWreck]

@@fattomandeibu Oh yeah probably. And that is how China, India & Mexico became good places to outsource your console manufacturing to.

[@TAGMedia7]

The Lynx warrants a part two of this episode.

[@deg6788]

Yes❤

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

The coder behind Stun Runner and Roadblasters, kindly detailed how they were done on the Lynx hardware, on Atari Age forum, some years ago: When S.T.U.N. Runner came up in the office there was talk of doing it polygonaly like Hard Drivin or Steel Talons and no one thought it could be done at a decent framerate so I decided to experiment with extending the horizontal RoadBlaster system to X and Y, which worked nicely in a demo and I got to do the game. S.T.U.N. Runner draws many cross sections of track as sprites to create the illusion of a solid 3D shape which is much faster than drawing the actual polygons on the Lynx. The ship, enemies, shots, etc. are all sprites who have 90 degrees worth of rotation frames that are flipped horizontally and vertically to fill out 360 degrees of rotation with 1/4 the storage on the cartridge. RoadBlasters uses the paletized lines almost exactly as you describe them on your site. There are no hills so the lines just slide left and right to curve the track, and the palette is changed for each line to animate the yellow centerline stripes, red and white stripes on the edges, and background off the road. All the objects in the game are sprites with rotation frames stored in the cart as needed. With scale and palette animations, care must be taken to account for perspective. Size of sprites varies with 1/depth which is nonlinear. The coin op S.T.U.N. Runner is truly completely 3D. D. Scott Williamson

[@MaxOakland]

I can’t imagine the Lynx was anything less that extremely impressive when it came out

[@grasignoel7374]

It truly was, and so frustrating to hear people talk about their horrible gameboy at that era whilst berating the lynx simply because atari wasn't "cool" anymore..plus atari really did a poor effort in promoting the machine, they had lined up so many developers and titles that just never happened because they thought they could run a secondary console called the jaguar that died basically on release. I could never understand gameboy people, the lynx and it's other color counterpart rival the sega gamegear had so many great quality titles over the poor quantity gameboy it was a head scratching moment.. not so dissimilar I guess from the android vs iOS differences today.

[@MaxOakland]

@@grasignoel7374 The gameboy library is amazing and it was a ton cheaper so I can understand why people got the gameboy instead (especially kids who were getting these things as gifts and didn't have a choice). Also, battery life was a big consideration on these things and the gameboy beat them on that But it's still amazing to see how powerful the lynx was

[@barryschalkwijk9388]

it really looked pretty ass.

[@Tater-Chuck]

​@@barryschalkwijk9388If you've never used a payphone, you're really unfit to comment.

[@barryschalkwijk9388]

@@Tater-Chuck i'm 45 dude, i have used a fucking rotary phone at my aunts house

[@monotonehell]

The Lynx was amazing in its time. Nothing came close in handheld. As long as you had the budget for batteries. 😂

[@csciabar]

What game that isnt a port of another game is worthwhile tho? Just curious for real haha.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@csciabar Chip's Challenge was a Lynx original. The PC port couldn't compare. Zaku is a great looking homebrew shmup.

[@barryschalkwijk9388]

Only in (some screenshots) did the Lynx look better. The Gamegear had way better moving graphics imho. The resolution of the Lynx and shitty scrolling killed it.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@barryschalkwijk9388 The TurboExpress beat them both. But the Gameboy was a better portable system, in the sense it was actually portable. I loved my GG, but as fast as it devoured batteries, it was closer to being a home console with its own screen.

[@barryschalkwijk9388]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 wasn't the TE al lot later though? and yes, the Gameboy was the only actual portable one lol. But i consider that a different category because it's 8 bit monochrome graphics.

[@JimLeonard]

Very nice video. One of the things not mentioned was that the Lynx had a dedicated math unit that was capable of MUL, DIV, and limited floating point calcs, which was leveraged for the 3-D games, as well as a Mandelbrot fractal viewer easter egg in Chip's Challenge. It is amazing how technically advanced the Lynx was: Unlimited sprites with scaling, 4-channel stereo digitized audio... It's a miniature Amiga, which is no surprise as it was designed by two Amiga designers.

[@JimLeonard]

@@davedavies8968 Apologies if what I wrote wasn't clear. No, the Lynx is limited to 4 channels, and each channel can be output to either the left, right, or both channels. So 4 channels in total, but each channel can be left, right, or both (mono).

[@scottwilliamson3210]

This is great! Analysis is spot on! (I know, I wrote RoadBlasters, S.T.U.N. Runner, and Toki on the Lynx)

[@Sharopolis]

Hi! Thanks so much! Its nice to know when I'm on the right track with my analysis. Really great to hear from you. I don't think I even name checked you in the video, sorry! But thanks for your input!

[@mleolv426]

Toki is an absolute awesome conversion of the arcade game. Well done.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Toki was my all time favorite Lynx title at the time. Owe you a a lot for those happy times

[@scottwilliamson3210]

@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 Thanks so much. Have you checked out the Easter Eggs? Hold Option 1 and Up completely through the title screen (freak out) or continue screen (to see us). #fun!

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Does Lynx Road Blasters use 24 colours on screen? Or is that just an urban Myth?

[@GeneWarren]

I didn't own a Lynx when I was a kid, but I had plenty of friends who did, and four-player Warbirds was amazing back in 1990-91.

[@3rdalbum]

It blows my mind that a 1980s handheld had sprite scaling and rotation capabilities that neither the Mega Drive nor SNES home consoles had. Blue Lightning was always impressive but it pushed the Lynx a little too far... Destroying an enemy at close range would result in large "debris" sprites and you'd get slowdown on a Lynx 1. Another game to look into, that was very impressive technically, was Electrocop. A third-person shooter where anything between your character and the camera would be faux-semitransparent (including walls) and everything except your character would scale as you walked forward and back.

[@todesziege]

Well, it sort of doesn't really... The Lynx "sprites" works in a very different way than the common sprites of other game systems-I'd argue it's more like "blitting"-which comes with its own set of benefits and limitations.

[@wimwiddershins]

Thanks for giving the LYNX some love. This chunky beast started my addiction to handheld gaming.

[@jenshartmann8475]

Thanks for the video and the (always) interresting explainations. One remark from me as a native german speaker: The "Luchs" part of "Luchsenstein 3D" refers to lynx, since "Luchs" is the german word for lynx. The whole thing is a mashup of "Luchs" and "Wolfenstein" (Since the animal wolf - also in german - is called Wolf). Its pronoucned like "look-zen-stein" ("look" like "looking"; "zen" like AMDs Zen architecture; the "stein" like in "mine"). Haha ... Germans ... funny people; I tell you ...

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Whooop! looking forward to this. The Lynx was a shocking little beast! the low resolution with high colour count? makes it feel like nothing else!

[@atarijaguarsgarage8873]

@@edy1361 Not a good idea.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@edy1361 Awesome Golf uses more on the title screen, think Lemmings pulls some palate swapping tricks and it's been suggested Road Blasters and Shadow Of The Beast do as well

[@derealized797]

I remember wanting a lynx and pretty much everything else that was coming out in the 80s and 90s. I never got any of it, and then I figured out it was because we were poor. Eventually though i did get a ps1 and n64, and even came across a Saturn. And before that my older brother did manage to get a master system and somehow an nes... but it was all extremely difficult to get for us as kids. We had to get jobs doing whatever was available and work for what we wanted. Which yeah it's good but also... it sucked wanting that stuff so bad. Like the dirt bike i never got.

[@GregsGameRoom]

I've always felt the Lynx library was just stellar and one of the best ratios of good/bad games Atari developed.

[@marcellachine5718]

Recently I played alot of lynx games on my raspberry pi. One for me that really stands out was ninja gaiden. It looks and sounds very much like the arcade version. Quite the feat for the lynx.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

A shame Atari wouldn't let the developers use a bigger cartridge 😭 Might of seen the Arcade intro and missing level added.

[@Tater-Chuck]

I've tried Lynx emulators on so many systems. They almost never get it right. They're almost always just a port of the thousand year-old Handy emulator. The only system I've ever seen run it correctly was a Sony PSP. It was almost perfect.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

Now we're talking... I'll just go and get a set of batteries. And then another set.

[@stunthumb]

Love the lynx... back then and even to this day - I have a nice little cartridge collection and an original lynx. For me, most of the games pushed the system to the limits - I mostly play Gates of Zendocon and Xybots.

[@peterpereira3653]

I have both of those games too, played both for many many hours.

[@10072018]

Thank you for posting this! Always a huge fan of the Lynx. A real powerhouse, had some nice graphical tricks I'd not seen anywhere else at the time. I got the AC adapter for mine, so batteries were never an issue as long as I could sit next to a socket. And the resolution looks terrible in these youtube reviews, but in real life it wasn't that bad. Between the screen brightness and lcd blur, the games actually looked pretty great in person.

[@julianregel]

Great video! If you want to know what a console version of the Lynx would look like, it's the 3DO. Same team behind both, and ta similar approach in architecture, replacing the 4Mhz 8bit 6502 CPU with a 12.5Mhz 32bit ARM60, and the 16Mhz, 16bit Suzy with the 25Mhz 32bit Cel Engine. The Cel Engine works in the same was as Suzy: It has a single buffer and draws sprites ("cels") that can be scaled, rotated and distorted, working through a list of objects defined in a sprite/cel data structure. There are some obvious advantages in the 3DO due to the later technology, including multiple colour depths, the ability to compress cels to save space, and a feature to very quickly clear and draw a static background before the cels are drawn using the 3DO's VRAM serial port ("SPORT Bus"). The reason the 3DO failed was the pricing model and timing, which made it too expensive at launch and didn't give it enough of a head start before the PlayStation landed. But things like the Open Lara port shows that it was a more powerful console that some people thought at the time.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@davedavies8968 being weaker at 2D than the SNES didn't help either.

[@noaht2005]

This channel is really underrated. Great video, I barely knew anything about the Lynx apart for the bad resolution

[@plainlazy2097]

Always get hyped when a Sharopolis video drops!

[@VaterOrlaag]

I loved my Lynx (the II revision), and I loved playing Steel Talons on it. Except for the missions where you fly through a narrow canyon, those can frig right off.

[@DanVzare]

Just subscribed yesterday after finding your awesome channel, and already a new video. It's like Christmas has come early. :)

[@CC.DeVille]

Shadow of the Beast does have multiple background and foreground layers. The clouds move at 4 different speeds. The mountains are on the same layer as the clouds at the top, moving the fastest. There are also 3 layers of grass. Beast also breaks the supposed limit of 16 colours on screen at once. The sky alone has 10 different colours and the trees have 3 shades of brown and 3 shades of green. When there are enemies on screen the colours easily go over 20.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

There are a few Lynx titles that use clever coding routines to get more than 16 colours on screen, Awesome Golf on the title screen, think off memory Road blasters and Alpine Games in-game.

[@johnrickard8512]

When it comes to hardware scrolling, whenever there happens to be a speedy blitter moving pixels around it can be safely assumed that said blitter can be convinced to scroll a bunch of different backgrounds all at once. Personally I'm surprised more classic systems didn't use this technique as the Amiga and Lynx both used this strategy to great effect.

[@BurritoKingdom]

Probably the expense of RAM back in the 80s and 90s. It's one of the reasons the Lynx had such a low resolution. Unlike tile based systems like the Japanese consoles, blitter systems needed to load data to RAM first.

[@justinlink1616]

Roadblasters looks so good...

[@joey199412]

Great video and I appreciate the explanation of how it is rendered and fed to the co-processor.

[@wolventerror]

Great video! I LOVE my Lynx! Even with the low resolution, what it could do with sprites was just impressive! It had some amazing Arcade ports for what it was as well!

[@peterpereira3653]

Atari Lynx could definitely throw around a good amount of spites on the screen.Was a quite powerful piece of hardware for a handheld of its era.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@peterpereira3653 crying shame Tramiels scrimped on cartridge sizes. APB missed out on the Prisoner Confession sequence Ninja Gaiden missed a level, plus the intro.

[@pw1169]

Amazing system for the time, Suzi even had a hardware divide and multiply, crazy! Shame about how the cartridge memory worked, really hamstrung the system imo

[@guaposneeze]

The Lynx definitely deserves some sort of modern "mini" console version. It would be cheap to make a smaller version with a bigger screen nowadays. It's a shame the software library doesn't.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@guaposneeze that's why I never bought a Lynx when I got back into Retro. The PSP was offering better versions of Xenophobe, Desert Strike, Roadblasters, Rampage, Xybots, Paperboy, Klax, Joust on Retro Compilations, plus had things like proper Gauntlet and titles like 720 which Atari had promised me as a Lynx owner. Lynx lacked too many killer exclusives to call it's own, software a little too arcade conversion and poor clones heavy. Viking Child is no Wonderboy Lemmings lacks the frantic nature of the original with icons now on a pause screen. Lynx RPG titles never got finished. Guardians:Storm Over Doria, Daemonsgateand Eye Of The Beholder.. Lynx had nothing in this genre to match the Game Gear 😭

[@jumhig]

The cartridge memory was like having a flash drive - streaming data off the cartridge is pretty fast, so if you designed for game with this in mind, it's not really a problem.

[@pw1169]

@@jumhig I would think a bank switching solution would allow access to more memory and not be hamstrung having the cpu copy bytes from the cartridge to ram. But that’s just my experience developing for it

[@TheLairdsLair]

I know it's a homebrew but I'm very surprised that Alpine Games didn't get a mention. I would have also included Gates of Zendocon as it features some really clever palette switching effects and another shooter in Zarlor Mercenary because it does actually load data from the game card, which as you mentioned, the Lynx isn't supposed to be able to do.

[@johneymute]

Wooow, if that’s true that zarlor menecary does load data from the cart into the lynx, that’s definitely awesome(even if it slows down the framerate, i will see alooot of potential in this, just imagine if wolf3D could take advantage of this to allow bigger levels ,that would be pretty cool😁

[@Animated__Freak]

Wasn't the lynx pretty much the most powerful handheld until the GBA? Excluding console handhelds like the Nomad and turbo-express.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

It's not quite as straightforward as that. The Sega Game Gear ran platform games at upto 60 fps, where as the Lynx ran them in 15-20 fps. The NEC handheld used the faster CPU and software routines to do what the Lynx did via hardware. The Lynx was an absolute beast in it's field though and i always wish Sega had taken it from Epyx, not Atari. They could of done so much more with it's advanced sprite handling abilities. G. G Vs Lynx Platform game comparison : kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5O8hXxtqJKngsU

[@alexojideagu]

@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 The Lynx could run games 30-60fps, look up the homebrew game Zaku. Road Blasters and Shadow of the beast was also very smooth 30-60 FPS.

[@miguelalbuquerque8450]

0:19 I can't be the only one who finds this commercial hilarious

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

In terms of how the systems potential was used: "On Klax, in particular, about 75% of the system resources are being spent on just the sound effects." -- Stephen H. Landrum

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@davedavies8968 Sadly that's the only quote from him, I have seen, he doesn't seem to of liked doing interviews or maybe simply was never asked?

[@billybandit]

Mind blowing how far ahead of its time the Lynx was. Sprite scaling/rotation and true polygonal 3D were things that SNES FX chip games and the Sega 32X were shouting about, and there was a handheld that could do it out of the box in the 80s. Real shame it never caught on

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Sega criminally ignored the sprite handling abilities of the Mega CD, going for FMV Dross bar one or 2 titles like Batman Returns, Core Design were only real developers to utilize the machines potential. Issue with SNES SFX and Sega SVP DSP chips, far too expensive to use, pushed cart prices up into £70+ range. 32X was seen as more viable alternative and way of increasing MD 3D ability further and finally improving it's colour palate etc

[@MaxAbramson3]

@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 The Sega CD had a 1M/1M mode and a 2M mode. Each had its limitations, but only the 2M mode (IIRC) would allow for any sprite scaling, rotation, or special hardware effects. Sega's engineers had considered building the Sega CD as a standalone console in order to avoid the 64/512 color limit and bandwidth limitations of the Megadrive, but the decision had already been made to use it as an add on. When the 32X was released by Sega of America, it wisely run the Genesis output into the 32X, allowing it to display 256 out of 32,768 colors on top of the Genesis output image--usually used just for backgrounds.

[@InfectiousGroovePodcast]

I had a Lynx back at launch and other than the battery life, I always thought it was pretty awesome

[@nelsoncabrera6464]

i remember my parents going to Eckerd Drugs to buy packs of batteries whenever we had a long car ride. The Lynx went through them so quickly. I couldn't use the cigarette port adapter because the one in our 70s "land yatch" was a solid plug of rust.

[@thecunninlynguist]

always wanted one as a kid. Absolutely love these informative vids.

[@valley_robot]

Alien vs predator was unreleased on this but the room is available to run in an emulator ,it’s pretty cool

[@dingo4010]

I remember seeing stun runner on the ads for the lynx and beilg amazed. It's crazy how good the sprite scaling was for a hand held from the 80s.

[@peterpereira3653]

And Stun Runner was significantly better on Atari Lynx than on Atari ST and I had both.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@peterpereira3653 Different dev teams and different approaches. DOMARK tried to replicate the ST and Amiga versions using polygons, never going to come anywhere near the speed of the coin op, hardware differences were night and day. Scott D. Williamson took a much wiser route with Lynx conversion, essential you retained the speed, use hardware to mimic Arcade, build graphics via sprite rings, maintain the look, don't loose the arcade essence

[@Gerenocidiac]

Crazy seeing Shadow of the Beast on the Atari Lynx. I am currently plaything through Shadow of the Beast on my PS5 (via PS Now, so it's actually a PS4 game I believe). It looks very similar considering the generation gaps between them. So bizarre, and I can vouch that it's not a very good game, but the enhanced graphics make it slightly more enjoyable as you run around killing creatures.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Fantastic conversion of SOTB to the Lynx, ST version should never of been attempted unless they went for a late, STE only conversion. Sadly it is missing the flying section and not ideally suited to handheld play, but a stunning showcase of the machines potential.

[@alexandredevert4935]

That Susie chip packs quite a punch, holy molly !

[@DopeteK]

I wanted to see Hard Drivin' being drawn. I loved that game when it came to the Lynx...

[@ZothiamaCF]

Warbirds immediately reminded me of Wings on the Amiga, loved that game ✌️

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Both superb titles, hammered Wings on the GBA, Warbirds only let down by it's lack of variety.

[@SonicBoone56]

The Lynx was many many years ahead of its time and is one of my favorite consoles as a result, even if it's way older than I am. I own two, one of which is a fried parts machine and the other is refreshed but needs some more replacement parts to work again.

[@IuriFiedoruk]

It is a shame this portable failed, at the time it was amazing. The only other great fail that compares to its power (relative to the current-gen consoles) was the Turbografx Express.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Which used clever coding routines and the fast CPU, to mimic what the Lynx did in hardware, in software.

[@EmergencyChannel]

Too expensive and sucked down batteries. Sega handhelds failed for the same reasons. Probably the reason why Nintendo didn't put out a backlit screen or a Gameboy upgrade for a decade until the 00's brought cheap, powerful, power sipping chipsets. Then a little bit later the wide adoption of cellphones made lithium batteries mass produced and cheap to use for the Gameboy Advance SP and the DS.

[@clarkegibson464]

'Look through a sock while throwing batteries out the window.' I chortled.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Stores do not support the Lynx well because Atari does not help them support the Lynx. Stores know that they have a much better chance to sell products when the manuyfacturer of the product advertises. They have a much harder time selling a product when the consumer comes in and sees something like the Lynx, and says "What is that? I've never heard of it before." -- Stephen H. Landrum

[@mwaawm]

A 'games that push the limits of the Atari ST' would be most welcome

[@SatoshiMatrix1]

Everytime I see a Lynx game I think "wow, that's an amazing proof of concept. Too bad it's not on something other than Lynx" lol

[@atarijaguarsgarage8873]

I don't think some of these "pushing" games were the best for the system. The 3D polygon games were technically great achievements but not that great to play.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@atarijaguarsgarage8873 Stun Runner was very sensibly converted, mimic the look with sprite rings. Hard Drivin and Steel Talons were ambitious conversions to the Lynx, but the frame rates killed both for me.

[@yornav]

My all time favoite Lynx game I played back in the days was Checkered Flag. The only big drawback of the Lynx back then was it's hunger for AA batteries. I always played via power adapter, which made it not very portable. (but it's a way too chunky thing anyway to put in your pocket)

[@3rdalbum]

Chequered Flag was awesome. So fast, with a fantastic frame rate. I always liked how crashing against other cars would cause damage to your wing mirrors.

[@peterpereira3653]

It could fit into some larger coat pockets, but not in trouser pockets.And Checkered Flag was a great racer especially with multiple players on Com Lynx.I used to play against my brother.

[@MaxAbramson3]

C powercells cost about the same as AA but have almost 3x as many mAh. Using two C batteries would've given the Lynx a bit more life, and replacing two C's is much less expensive than six AA's. The first Lynx was quite large and had a lot of empty space inside. Strange that Epyx didn't choose to simply use C's.

[@3rdalbum]

​@@MaxAbramson3 With 2x C cells you'd only get 3 volts. The Lynx hardware required 9 volts.

[@albertabramson3157]

@@3rdalbum It's not difficult to run current through a transformer and up the voltage. What the device needs is sufficient amperage, which two C power cells have.

[@DenkyManner]

I had no idea the Lynx was so unconventional or powerful. I remember the adverts on tv but dismissed it so thoroughly I never realised it what it could do.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Incredible job as always!

[@Blas4ublasphemy]

Hard Drivin' is great on the GameCube Midway Arcade Treasures collection

[@sajid1979]

My nephews just got the NINTENDO SWITCH OLED, was telling them, 30 years back we had the Atari Lynx. I’ve still got mine 😅 I bought it back in 2005. Lynx was way ahead of its time back in 89/90 😅

[@moracomole8090]

The homebrew of Wolfenstein is the most impressive thing ever. Looks and runs way better than it does on the snes

[@3rdalbum]

I mean heck, it runs better on a 4Mhz Lynx than it does on a 66 MHz PowerMac. (Albeit the Mac version was very poorly optimised)

[@yellowblanka6058]

0:19 - Yeah, if I walked into a room and saw 4 dudes like that, I'd probably walk back out very quickly.

[@noloolon2880]

A few things: I remember from an interview with Blue Lightning creators that the game was loading data from the cartridge pretty much all the time even if it was considered a bad practice by Atari. And I think both Electrocop and Alpine Games are very strong examples of what could be done with a Lynx.

[@peterpereira3653]

Not often I see a video on the Atari Lynx handheld these days.Good to see it still gets.Some respect for its capabilities in its era.I had two Atari Lynx model two versions and several sets of AA rechargeable batteries and AA fast battery chargers.And two AC power adapters.Really enjoyed the machine as I couldn't stand the ugly weird looking greenish screen that the Gameboy had.Some of the games titles on the Atari Lynx had better version.Than the other handhelds of the era.

[@albertabramson3157]

From my own memory, an Atari Lynx 3 (both as a home console and portable) with 320x204 resolution, more memory, and higher clock rates all around, would've been a much better investment than the Panther-Jaguar direction that Atari took. The technology was very good, and a high res version that still ran the 74 existing titles could've cleaned up in the sub-$150 console market in the early 1990s. Eventually, price pressure would've forced the price of the game console down. Normally, mid-level platforms (right between the NES/SMS and Genesis/TurboGrafx in appearance and cost) don't work, but MOS was selling a 65C816 16-bit processor used in the Apple IIgx that was fully backward compatible with the Atari Lynx's CPU. They could've honestly sold that as a high volume, budget 16-bit console and maintained backward compatibility with their existing library.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

It was the high price of the Samsung LCD screens that meant Atari were unable to launch the Lynx any lower than they did the Jaguar launched in USA and UK at higher prices than Atari had wanted. A crippling drawback of the Panther and Jaguar CD were lack of Ram, Ram prices too high for Atari to put more in or on as a buffer, on systems. Jag 2Mb Ram was voiced as a concern at the time by developers.

[@dwightdixon8508]

I love the Lynx. Many unique and exclusive games with scaling in almost all games! I have 4 total, 2 with McWill screen mod, it's beautiful

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Lynx could of had an official conversion of Wolfenstein 3D,only the Tramiel family sent John Carmack his first milestone payment 3 months late, so he abandoned the entire project 😭

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

R. J Mical blames Atari's bad reputation with Hardware manufacturers in Asia for a lot of the Lynx price issues, claiming Epyx had made sweet deals for low cost parts for the Lynx, then Handy, but once they knew Atari had the technology, they suddenly doubled their prices.

[@ClassicReplay]

This video has inspired me, great, loved it. I owned an Atari lynx, loved Cali Games and many more.

[@Arjay82]

I remember friends that were used to Gameboy were blown away by my copy of Stun Runner.

[@joesshows6793]

I do believe it was sold as a 16bit handheld

[@DanafoxyVixen]

thats because the graphics co-processor was 16bit even tho the cpu was 8bit

[@Kilthan2050]

We rented a lynx when i was a kid. I absolutely loved it.

[@thegloriousryius]

There's nothing wrong with the way you say tiles! Great video!

[@DevMeloy]

Had a friend with a Lynx and loved it! wish it would've caught on

[@cave_0]

never have I seen an Atari Lynx irl, or any atari console

[@AcornElectron]

Had a couple in my time, couple of different versions. It was bloody brilliant at the time really but those batteries man. Plus, everyone else had gameboy or game gear so it was a bit (lot) of a letdown in software quantity. Keep up the good work fella and stay safe.

[@dyscotopia]

Ah... If only the Amiga had added the scaling and rotation features of the Lynx to the AGA chipset, it might have squeezed a bit more life out of it. They do share some related lineage.

[@Angellmbrr]

Right?

[@JohnnyWednesday]

hardware scaling on the A1200 and CD32? would of saved the Amiga - for a fact. AGA was too little, too late :(

[@MarkTheMorose]

@@Angellmbrr RJ Mical, Dave Needle, and David Morse, for a start.

[@dyscotopia]

It was pretty bad when a lot of Genesis and SNES games looked better than my shiny new optical drive equipped 32-bits of power. The Akiko had some potential (you can run Doom at about 12 fps using it) but it was knee capped because it wasn't in the 1200 so I can't think of any contemporary developers that bothered learning about it. Make it consistent across the range and add some sprite magic and they could have knocked it out of the park. Commodore, always known for the best decisions.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@dyscotopia Soon as I saw Thalion saying they wished the A1200 had the Atari Falcon DSP, i knew Commodore had messed up along the line with the 1200. I owned one for a few years, 256 colour graphics were nice, but i expected a lot more. How many games used the Chunky to Planar chip? Wing Commander? Maybe one or 2 others? 🤔

[@mcrsit]

That Blue Lighting is incredible!

[@frankowalker4662]

I always wanted a Lynx, but the price was insane for my budget.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Cost Atari dear, Tramiel admits sales were slow until they cut the cost. They had their hands tied though, they couldn't get the cost of the LCD screens reduced, so couldn't sell the Lynx any cheaper at launch.

[@alexojideagu]

By 1993/1994 the Lynx 2 was the same price or cheaper than a Gameboy.

[@super86brandon]

I bought mine new around 1998 for the equivalent of 60 euro with like 6 games bundled at my local toy store.. Best deal of my life.

[@Pickchore]

Suzy is a great track by the 80s Prince affiliated band called Mazarati

[@xenorac]

Never had a Lynx, I remember them when they came out. I am now impressed with how well these were coded for, kinda wish I had one back in the day.

[@redvenomweb]

Surprised you didn't mention Electrocop. The gameplay isn't the greatest, but it's a graphical miracle for a 1989 handheld game.

[@buffalodebill7986]

Xybots was also a great game for the Lynx.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Easier than the Arcade as well, which is a bonus 😊

[@NehemiahDC]

Had no idea the Lynx had these type of games in 1990. 😲

[@espfusion]

Thanks for the video. I've said it before but I really enjoy your dives into emulator debug features to show how the games pull off their tricks. You go into really stellar technical depth in these videos, truly to a level rarely seen on youtube gaming videos. The question about what a console-ized Lynx could have looked like is an interesting one. There was a good thread about this once on Atari Age or Spritesmind or Sega16 or somewhere, sadly I couldn't find it. But I remember the gist of it being that it probably wouldn't have worked very well, and I'm thinking about the same. Basically, the Lynx design was already pushing its memory bandwidth near its limit. The graphics design is much more bandwidth intensive per pixel than other platforms. First sprite pixels have to be read from memory, then the framebuffer has to be read and written to, and finally at some point read from again during raster scan. Since other platforms race the beam they only have to access memory reading the sprite/tile pixels, although they have to do it at the full refresh rate of the display. This design was suitable for a 160x102 16-color screen (not counting raster effects), which was a reasonable target for a handheld given the state of portable display technology, power consumption requirements, and what the competition was like. But I think a home console in 1989 would have had to support at least around 256x192, and I'm thinking at least 64 colors. Anything less would have been too noticeably inferior to the alternatives. That would have required about 4.5 times the bandwidth and display RAM. Or maybe 4x with a resolution like 240x180 or something. At 16MHz with 2-cycle page reads Suzy was already working at near the limit of what they could realistically get out of DRAM (they used 120ns parts). Moving Suzy to 16-bit would have meant a big increase in board layout complexity and probably more RAM chips. It also wouldn't have really given a straight 2x increase in bandwidth because of losses due to sprite lines that aren't a multiple of four pixels long. There are a couple of design changes that could help free up some bandwidth. One big one would be moving a normal parallel ROM cartridge bus that the CPU can access directly and independently of Suzy, and perhaps adding a small SRAM that's also exclusive to the CPU. This would free a lot of the cycles that the CPU keeps from Suzy. Another change is that the memory could be rearranged with pixel-wide enables so Suzy wouldn't need to perform read-modify-write accesses when it updates the framebuffer. That would have killed the collision detection feature which arguably wasn't really worth it anyway. But this wouldn't have made nearly enough of a difference on its own. I think to make something resembling the current design work you'd need like three Suzie chips each accessing framebuffers with 1/3rd of the bits in a 6-bit pixel, like dual packed bitplanes. It'd still be a different design with 2bpp pixels. Each chip would be paired with 32KB of DRAM and they'd have to interface with some video output chip that did the palette application. The chips would be arranged so each 2-bit pixel could be individually arranged. Instead of two 64Kx4-bit chips like the real Lynx it'd be a hefty 24 32Kx2-bit chips. The CPU would have to be faster than ~3.6MHz, probably more like the PC-Engine's 7.1MHz 6502-like at least. Needless to say, this would be quite a beast and I don't know if they could have realistically made it at all cost competitive with the other chips.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks for your really great analysis. The resolution is a killer isn't it, up it to console levels and suddenly you're dealing with a LOT more pixels to push. Once to take that into account you end up having to up the power of everything.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@Sharopolis Panther was going to be Atari's SNES/MD Killer in the original plan, but Atari lacking resources, put it on the back burner, until the Jaguar overtook it in R+D. Jeff Minter and Rob Nicholoson worked on the Panther. Rob:"The display was built up from a display list of bit-maps (or sprites). Each entry in the bit-map said "Display the bit-map at x,y". On each scan line, the object processor scanned through the list and determined which bit-maps were visible on the current line. It then filled a single line video "buffer" which was then output to the video hardware on the next scan line. It alternated between two scan line buffers. The Lynx has a simple 160 x 102 pixel video buffer (4 bits / pixel) so generates the display in a very different manner. It could also scale and mirror the bit-maps (by reading right to left and bottom to top) but it *couldn't* rotate. AFAIK, the bit-maps were in varying bit-resolutions. I can't remember if the single line buffers were 16 bit per pixel or 8 bit per pixel. This display list type of system was pioneered in early arcade systems and was used in the Atari VCS and 7600. It has the advantages that you can have a mixture of a standard video buffer (except see below) and "hardware" sprites. The bit-maps could be pretty much any size (aligned to 16 bit boundary I think). The downside of the system was that if you tried to display too much on one scan line, the system went crazy. The screen started jumping all over the place. On the Panther, you soon hit this limit - maybe 4 or 5 16 bit full-width sprites on each line. It was certainly nowhere near 83,000 sprites on a real game. The Panther had a pathetic amount of RAM. Maybe 128K. Certainly not enough to create two bit-maps as big as the whole screen and implement standard double buffering. I think there was 32K of static RAM for the display list. This was a good idea as it sped up generation of the display. The same system was used on the Jaguar but the object processor was beefed up and made more flexible to handle other features such as read-modify write (for shadows etc). Unfortunately, on the Jaguar the display list was in normal DRAM which meant the whole system stopped when the video processor wanted to access memory. It also meant that on the Jaguar, the advantages of page mode RAM where accessing the next byte/word along was often defeated as different devices (display, blitter, 68k and GPU etc) kept reading from different pages. The Jaguar was packed full over excellent ideas but the problems were never weeded out. A shame really. As I said, a neat piece of hardware. (except for the CD-ROM...)" Jeff:"Hmmm - well I certainly never had it displaying 65,535 sprites simultaneously! The sprite hardware was a lot like the OLP on the Jag, and had similar limitations - putting too many sprites on one scanline would cause "tearing" where the OLP had insufficient time to traverse the entire list during the time of a scanline. Also, sprites that were scaled up would take twice the bandwidth of standard, unscaled sprites, ISTR. I did a demo with this whopping great dinosaur about 2 screens high, a couple of ground planes and 40 bouncing, scaling antelopes that bounced along the ground. ISTR that if you had too many beasts land at the one time, you'd get a bit of tear at the bottom of the screen. You could do some nice warping though by using an IRQ per scanline to twiddle scaled sprite params... had some nice stuff with wibbly, colour-cycling Mandy images that warped and scrolled, ISTR..." \ (:-) - Y a K /

[@MaxAbramson3]

@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 Wow. Where did you find THIS discussion?

[@Sinn0100]

I never looked at the specs for the Atari Lynx before but had they put this into a home console back then...holy s*$t! The Lynx could have easily stood up to both the Sega Genesis and Snes hardware wise. Such a shame...had Atari simply given gamers the ability to connect their handhelds to a TV it would have been huge. They may have climbed their way out of the hole they created for themselves. Let's look at this another way, the Sega Genesis had "blast processing" at 7.5Mhz. The Motorola 68K that was built into every Genesis was considered very fast in 1989 for a console. In comes Atari with the 16-bit Suzie chip running at 16Mhz! That's the speed many full desktops were running at the time. You also have to understand that we were bit and megahertz crazy. The specs of the Lynx against the home consoles may have been enough...oh well.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

The ill-fated Panther, which was supposed to launch alongside the Lynx originally, would of been Atari's platform to take on SNES etc.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Atari spent around £2 million advertising the Lynx at the start, but sales didn't reach 50,000 till they slashed the price by £50 to £130 and not at the expected time for price drops as well.

[@antoinegx]

Great video ! Thanks

[@AndyDo]

Playing Lynx on MiSTer recently, yes. It would have been great as a home console.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

The Panther was going to he the Lynx but even more of a sprite pushing monster, but Atari lacked the resources to support 2 flagship product launches, so Panther pushed back then Jaguar overtook it in R+D

[@neilthomas6042]

One of my favourite consoles, with my fave game being Crystal Mines 2.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

This console was really a power house that had hardware features that one wished my Amiga had such has scaling in hardware. Simply fa tactic. This console also illustrates that the best does not always dominate a market when you compare this hardware to a Nintendo game boy.

[@peterpereira3653]

Gameboy won probably because at the time battery technology as it was back then.Proved the limiting factor for most handheld machines of the era.If the battery technology was a built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery, things might have turned out differently.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@peterpereira3653 plus:it fitted perfectly in your pocket and Nintendo seemed to understand the importance of getting titles that worked as handheld titles. Atari by comparison seemed to want Names converted to the Lynx. Too many Arcade conversions, ST AMIGA conversions, in a library thst needed more exclusives. Dracula The Undead, SOTB etc.. Amazing games, but once completed, no real replay value.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Even when Atari allowed developers to use the bigger sized cartridges on the Lynx, they wouldn't pay the software developers for the additional code art and sound assests being used to take advantage of the extra memory

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@davedavies8968 Tramiel family were cheap, there was no incentive for developers to really push Lynx software as they'd be paid the same for writing a game that ran in the smallest cartridge sizes as they would the bigger. So why would you spend extra months coding and playtesting, bigger, more ambitious Lynx games, when you'd get paid the same for porting say an Amiga title to the Lynx?

[@kiaelinkx]

I remember playing the Lynx at a friend’s house and being blown away by it, but also remember a mega migraine at home for playing on that awful awful screen all day long, oh yeah and I also remember 2 packets of batteries being used and drained that day xD

[@ecernosoft3096]

The lynx beats machines from 1999. (The neo geo pocket, and even gameboy color) in terms of power. It is truely EPIC.

[@bighairydel]

heres a question, as seen on the lynx and atari st, lines of colour always flicker on the left of the screen as you can see on shadow of the beast here, why this?

[@cepopeye]

The sniper game looks way better than the others

[@TheWarmotor]

Great video, not enough people cover the Lynx and I had no idea it had a boosted 6502! I always thought this was a 16 bit system, that’s NUTS.

[@DoggoneNexus]

My understanding is that it's a "16-bit" system in the same way the PC Engine is: A 16-bit graphics chip paired with an 8-bit CPU.

[@TheWarmotor]

@@DoggoneNexus Word!

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@DoggoneNexus yep, it's an Architecture machine.. Marketing can get away by calling it 16 bit as it has sufficient 16 bit architecture not to be seen as misleading

[@pon2oon]

What a piece of hardware, ahead of it's time in ways. Rather than another hardware sprite/tile system, this was a cpu coupled with a gpu and math coprocessor, like modern hardware today, albeit rendering smooth scaling of backgrounds and objects, rather than drawing polygons. All in a portable unit, kind of like a tiny Sega super-scaling arcade machine.

[@chattingesque372]

Pinball Jam kicked butt, it had a table devoted to Boobarella

[@LavaCanyon]

Suzi must have been worked hard to get the graphics of Hunting Clash.

[@luciennethesorceress]

What music are you playing in the background of this vid?

[@breadbunbun]

I feel that the Lynx never got the attention it deserved in both in software support and sales. The console was really a thing of beauty. And while the low res was a bit of a deal breaker. I think the real problem was just that atari was a bit of a mess at the time. Along with the somewhat hamfisted design of the console not helping that much. A missed oppurtunity in my opinion.

[@retrogamer33]

It didn't get much attention because of Bintendo and Sega

[@ExtremeWreck]

Honestly, the emulation makes the low-res look like a really cool effect.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Atari was in dire straits at the time. Original plan to launch Panther alongside Lynx fell by the wayside, Atari lacked the finance resources. The STE arrived far too late, offering far too little. The ST Console had been roumoured, scrapped. The Amiga was overtaking the ST.. Sega and Nintendo dominated both the US and European console markets.. Tramiel family simply didn't understand the console market..

[@REzado63]

Couple years ago me and you talked about possibly showing metroidvanias they came out before metroid or Castlevania like jet-set Willy for example. Still waiting and anticipating that awesome video. Sorry I don't know how to make them that's why I leave this in your hands my friend 👍

[@detectingretro6313]

Good show. Still need to get hold of a Lynx after all these years.