Atari Lynx

The Atari Lynx is Atari's only handheld game console, and the first such machine with a color display. It was released in 1989, the same year as Nintendo's (monochromatic) Game Boy.

Related Topics:
Atari - Game console - Color - 1989 - Nintendo - Game Boy

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The Atari Lynx had several innovative features including it being the first color handheld, with a backlit display, a switchable right-handed/left-handed (upside down) configuration, and the ability to network with up to 17 other units via its "ComLynx" system (though most games would network 8 or fewer players).

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The Lynx was also the first gaming console with hardware support for zooming/distortion of sprites, allowing fast pseudo-3D games with unrivaled quality at the time and a capacity for drawing filled polygons with limited CPU intervention.

Related Topics:
Sprites - 3D

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The machine was developed by Epyx as the "Handy" and completed in 1987, at which point Atari bought the rights to it. Atari changed the internal speaker and removed the thumb-stick on the control pad before releasing it as the Lynx two years later, initially retailing in the US at USD $189.95. The two creators of the system, RJ Mical and Dave Needle, were also members of the Amiga design team and much to the frustration of Atari, the Amiga was used as the software development platform.

Related Topics:
Epyx - 1987 - RJ Mical - Dave Needle - Amiga

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In 1991, Atari relaunched the Lynx with new packaging, slightly improved hardware, and a new sleek black look. The new system (referred within Atari as the "Lynx II") featured rubber hand grips and a clearer backlit color screen with a power save option. It also replaced the monaural headphone jack of the original Lynx with one wired for stereo.

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Though technologically superior to the Game Boy, Nintendo's marketing muscle, domination of 3rd party developers, and quality first party game releases (particularly Tetris) meant the Lynx was soon marginalized. The Lynx also suffered from needing more batteries (six versus four in the original Game Boy) which managed to run down much faster. The more powerful CPU of the Lynx, plus its backlit screen, would drain a set of six AA cells in only four hours (five to six hours in the Lynx II). The Lynx was also physically larger than it needed to be; Atari had followed the advice of focus groups who wanted a bigger unit because that gave them "more" for their money. (Much of the inside of the Lynx's housing was empty air.) It also didn't help that the Lynx was sold at a substantially higher price than the Game Boy. By the mid 1990s, the Atari Lynx was no longer widely available.

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As with a lot of older consoles, there's a small group of devoted fans still creating and selling games for the system.

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