The Atari Lynx Secret!

[@alexojideagu]

I had the Lynx 2 and loved it as a kid. The fact the Lynx was Invented in 1987 initially with a tape deck design, with sprite scaling and unlimited sprites, something even the Megadrive and SNES couldn't do in hardware. Insane

[@AmigaCammy]

I love the Lynx, and the story behind its conception and design. The idea of loading games from tape for a console is really different, and the way it uses RAM instead of loading directly from ROM in way Japanese consoles did. I hope you continue to find more special and hidden features in the Lynx, I think the community really appreciates it.

[@BrekMartin]

There’s a familiar name! How did you find this? Are you in a Lynx group too? I hope I conveyed that I appreciate it much more now than I did back then.

[@AmigaCammy]

@@BrekMartin I regularly look for videos on retro gaming and found yours by chance I think! I'm in some Lynx groups but don't hang out on social media much.

[@vincentmarchand9901]

Other clue : the SYSCTL1 register at 0xFD87 has a bit to determine "MOTOR ON" (which is used to reset the counter)

[@BrekMartin]

At some point, I’ll be needing it!

[@landspide]

They're both in very good condition... I got my first lynx as I was repairing and ram upgrading portfolios back in the day. I now have a screen upgraded V2 and every commercially released game; the only console I went crazy collecting for.

[@BrekMartin]

Yeah I had to pay for that! I was adamant to get a Lynx 1 with real grey plastic.

[@landspide]

@@BrekMartin yeah it looks really good, the angled camera shots show how good the condition is, as that grey plastic does scuff quite a bit over time.

[@TradieTrev]

Love your break down of the design and demo, have to love these older consoles how simple they were compared to the modern counterparts. Fond memories playing with the big sucker during swimming carnivals as a kid; It always had a crap screen and only the rich kids had them lol.

[@BrekMartin]

And my first six AA batteries died just after making this :D I remember that too!

[@BrekMartin]

I’m saddened that I’m not going to see your comments again. You acted too hastily mate, but unfortunately there’s no taking it back. You were one of my kind, and I know it well. Sorry you couldn’t find your way out of it mate.

[@johneygd]

I am so glad that atari decided to not use tapes as a storage medium for games,other wise games would,ve loaded slow and/or could,ve damage overtime by lot’s of usages.

[@BrekMartin]

Hi, I doubt there was ever potential for that. There’s a short video floating around of the Lynx, before being sold to Atari. It was called the Handy (I hate that name), and it had a game ROM even by that stage, but developer docs do make it clear that tape decoding hardware is still built into the Mikey chip. An artefact of its earliest days is still there, but no software ever activated it. Trust me, I tried to find out how 😂