Original Concept and Production
The Atari Lynx was the world’s first full-color portable game console. It began life as a project at Epyx Software, which was probably best known for developing and publishing software titles, most notably for the Commodore 64. Some of their better known titles included Temple of Apshai in 1979, Jumpman in 1983, Summer Games in 1984, Winter Games in 1985, and California Games in 1987. In 1986, two former Commodore Amiga designers, R.J. Mical and Dave Needle, were tasked by their former manager at Amiga, David Morse (who was then working for Epyx) to come up with a handheld gaming unit to serve as that company’s entry into the game console market dominated at that time by Nintendo. They developed a 16-bit handheld game system with a color LCD screen and it was labeled as the Handy Game. However, by January of 1989 when the Handy Game was shown at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show, Epyx was suffering from severe losses with the collapse of the Commodore 64’s game market. So, Epyx shopped around their only viable product, the Handy Game, first to Nintendo (who declined), then to Sega (who also declined), then finally to Atari. Atari, despite suffering from the lackluster sales of its aging 2600 and 7800 game consoles, agreed to handle marketing of the Handy, with Epyx handling software for the system. By the end of the 1989, Epyx was in bankruptcy and Atari had taken over both the marketing and production of the console.

First Appearance
Atari displayed the device at the Summer 1989 CES (minus the thumb-stick control pad and with a better internal speaker). It was initially called The Portable Color Entertainment System, and it was touted as the first color handheld console. Additionally, it had several technical features which made it ahead of its time: truly scaling sprites; triangular (rather than polygonal) rendering in both foreground and background graphics; the ability to flip the screen easily for use by left-handed gamers; and a ComLynx cable that enabled players to hook up their Lynxes to play games head-to-head.

Console Release
When the console was finally released to the public in September of 1989, it had been renamed the Atari Lynx, selling at a price point of just under US$180. By the end of 1990, 500,000 units had been sold, and by late 1991, 800,000 had been sold. It’s estimated that somewhere close to 3 million units were sold during the brief lifetime (1989-1994) of the Lynx. This number falls far below the estimated 16-17 million units of the Nintendo Game Boy that were sold by 1995. Even the Lynx’s closest competitor, the Sega Game Gear released in 1991, came in a distant second behind the Nintendo Game Boy in sales, with about 4 million units sold during the same time period. In July of 1991, Atari attempted to correct the floundering sales of the Lynx by redesigning the console, improving its screen, increasing its battery life (slightly), adding rubberized grip handles on the back, and replacing the monaural output jack with a stereo one. The new console was dubbed the Lynx II, and it sold for just under US$100. But the newly redesigned Lynx still lagged far behind the competition in sales, despite its superior graphics and playability, and Lynx faded from the market by sometime in 1995.

Powering the Lynx
Both the original Atari Lynx and the Lynx II are powered by a custom 16-bit CMOS chip running at 16Mhz, called the Mikey chip, with 4-channel sound, a 160×102 pixel resolution, and a 4,096 color pallet for the 3.5” Citizen LCD screen. The graphics are handled by another custom 16-bit CMOS chip running at 16Mhz, called the Suzy chip. Both versions of the console are powered by six AA-size batteries, or an AC adapter that was sold separately. The battery life for the original Lynx was paltry 4-5 hours, and the Lynx II battery life was not much better at 5-6 hours. The battery pack (sold separately) that held six D-size batteries could last for up to 20 hours of continuous play.

Cartridges
The ROM cartridges for the system are either 128MB, 256MB, or 512MB, and come in three styles: flat, ridged, and curved lip, and they’re all not much thicker than a heavy credit card. The five launch titles (Blue Lightning, Electrocop, The Gates of Zendocon, California Games, and Chip’s Challenge) were released initially in the “flat” style of cartridge, a small square cart with a series of bumps at the top. After complaints from consumers about how hard it was to remove the flat carts from the original Lynx units, Atari briefly switched to “ridged” style cartridges that added two small ridges along the top back, ostensibly to make it easier to grip the cart when removing it from the console. The five original launch titles mentioned above, as well as Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, are the only titles to be released in the ridged style cartridges. A very short while later, the “curved lip” style of cart was introduced: flat with a curving bend at the top to make gripping it even easier. All 71 original titles in the Atari Lynx library are found in this standard curved lip style, including the five original launch titles and Gauntlet: The Third Encounter. Needless to say, the non-curved lip carts are the more rare ones, although they still can be found at reasonable prices today. By the way, for those who are interested in such things, most of the games for the Atari Lynx are rendered in landscape mode (horizontally) on the LCD screen during game play. But a few games – KLAX, Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, NFL Football, and the later releases Centipede and Raiden – are all rendered in portrait mode (vertically).

Packaging
The packages for the ROM cartridges are fairly small standard-size boxes (5 3/8” tall, 4 3/8” wide, and 7/8” thick) made of thin cardboard, although three of the five launch titles, Blue Lightning, Electrocop, and The Gates of Zendocon, were originally released in slightly larger flap tab-style boxes (7 5/8 tall, 5 ½ “ wide, and 7/8″ thick). Generally, these larger boxes are a bit harder to find than the standard-size boxes. Shortly afterwards, all games came packaged in the smaller standard-sized flap tab-style boxes. The original pack-in game for the Lynx, California Games, was not released separately in any box at all until several years later when it came out in a small standard-size box; before that, the game had only been packaged within the Lynx console box as a pack-in inside a plastic baggie with a larger-size manual booklet enclosed.

Manuals
Each of the 71 original-release games came with either a wall poster or a stapled booklet manual. Sixteen of them included wall poster instructions: full color folded glossy one-sheets measuring 22” high and 17” wide (one exception is the poster for the game Block Out, which measures a bit smaller at 16 3/8” high and 11” wide). The posters were printed with the box art on one side and a comic strip-style set of instructions on the reverse side. Each of the other 55 games included printed, stapled or folded booklet manuals, usually with instructions only in English for those sold in North America, and in English, French, Spanish, German and/or Italian versions elsewhere. These booklets measured 4 7/8” tall by 3 ¾” wide; all booklet manuals were printed in black and white with light red or pink shades outlining the title on the front cover. The only full-color booklet manual released was for the 1990 title Warbirds, an excellent game in its own right. Additionally, four of the launch titles (all except Chip’s Challenge) were originally packaged with large-size booklet manuals. The large manuals for Blue Lightning, Electrocop, and The Gates of Zendocon were 5/8” tall and 4 ¾” wide (the former was a stapled manual, and the latter two were folded ones). And the manual for California Games was a stapled booklet that was 7” high and 5” wide. Interestingly, there was never a regular-sized booklet printed for California Games; the original larger booklets were simply folded in half and inserted into the boxes when they came out later on in their own packaging. There may be other large-size manuals for Lynx games, especially outside of North America where I live, but these four are the only ones that I currently own.

Game Library
Now about the Atari Lynx game library: most of the games are pretty good, many of the games are great, and a few of them are real dogs. My personal faves are Awesome Golf, Block Out, Chip’s Challenge, California Games (especially Surfing), Electrocop, The Gates of Zendocon, Joust, KLAX, Lynx Casino, Ninja Gaiden, Paperboy, Rampart, RoadBlasters, Robotron: 2084, Rygar, Shanghai, Toki, and the previously mentioned Warbirds. I’m lucky to have acquired CIB or NIB copies of all 71 titles for my collection, a feat I was able to accomplish in only six years (2017-2023). In addition, I have also added copies of several after-market and homebrew titles, some of them pretty highly sought-after, to augment my collection; see the New Games for the Lynx Community section below.

Accessories
To go with my three Lynxes, I have in the past six years picked up one Atari Lynx I pouch and two Atari Lynx II carrying pouches, or slipcases as they’re sometimes called; three Lynx carrying cases with convenient shoulder straps; three Lynx AC adapters; two Lynx Battery Packs, which is a heavy monstrosity with its own gravity field that holds 6 D-size batteries for around 20 hours of continuous play; one Lynx I and two Lynx II Sun Visor/Screen Guards for use in bright sunlight; a Lynx Auto Cigarette Lighter Adapter; and, of course, the ComLynx Cable, which allows multiple players to “Lynx-up” and play each other on the same game. I guess I’m subconsciously hoping that this podcast will serve as a rather selfish way to get others interested in the Atari Lynx so that I can find another Lynx user locally with whom I can link up using the ComLynx cable.

LCD Upgrades
Now, a word about the LCD screen on the Atari Lynx: LCD screens from any devices that are almost 30 years old tend to fade over time. Additionally, their original resolution wasn’t great to begin with, compared to the LCD screens of today. In fact, the factory-installed 3.5″ 160×102-pixel LCD screen in the original Lynx and Lynx II has no inherent backlighting; instead, an actual fluorescent light source is installed just behind the screen, which is one reason why the 6 AA batteries in the Lynx don’t last long – that light really sucks up juice. A few years back, an enterprising gentleman in Germany known as McWill on the Atari Age Lynx forums created a new upgrade kit that replaces the original Lynx LCD with a modern-day self-lit LCD. Additionally, the kit includes a hack for the installation of a VGA output jack. Instructions on how to install the new LCD and the optional VGA output jack are included in the kit, which runs around $150 uninstalled, higher if you send your Lynx to Germany to have the kit installed by McWill himself. A relatively recent development is that Australian YouTuber BennVenn has released cheaper LCD solutions for both Lynx versions that do not include the VGA output. BennVenn is selling them through K-Retro‘s online store, and you can check availability for the kits here. The current prices are US$76.99 for the Lynx I kit and US$79.99 for the Lynx II kit. Both kits include the 3D-printed frame bracket for the screen that was created by Igor of AtariLynxVault.com (formerly AtariGamer.com)  The Lynx I kits require a little bit of fiddly soldering, but the Lynx II kits are solderless (except for a single optional wire to change the resolution/brightness levels); either kit is a good choice for those Lynxters like myself whom are solder-challenged.

All three of my Lynx consoles have been modded with new LCD screens; one Lynx I with the BennVenn IPS screen, one Lynx II with the BennVenn IPS screen (as well as a replacement speaker), and one Lynx II with the McWill TFT screen. And I can honestly testify that the resulting screen resolution and brightness of the new LCD compared to the original LCD is truly amazing. The system’s 4,096 color palette and scaling sprites can really be appreciated with either of these LCD upgrades. In short, whether you are a hardcore collector or just a casual Lynxter, you may want to consider either the McWill or the BennVenn LCD upgrade for your Atari Lynx console to help bring this amazing system into the 21st Century.

New Games for The Lynx Community
There is a thriving after-market and home brew scene for the Atari Lynx right now. Some home brew titles are simply staggering in their graphics, scale, and playability, with Alpine Games, unnamed, Wyvern Tales, and Zaku near the top of anyone’s home brew list (I’m lucky enough to own all four; excellent games!). And that’s good news because there is a huge batch of new and re-released home brew titles now available or scheduled to come out sometime over the next year or so; just check The Resources page for currently available titles, and check AtariLynxVault.com and the Atari Age Lynx forums for information about upcoming releases. Adding those home brew titles to the 71 original titles, as well as to the 50+ after-market titles that have been released since the Lynx went away nearly 30 years ago, means that there could be potentially nearly 175-200 titles available to current Atari Lynx game cart collectors in the near future. That’s a far cry from the over 1000 games released for the Lynx’s primary competitor at the time, the Nintendo Game Boy, but for a system like the Lynx, which sold only 3 million units over the course of its five-year history, that’s not too bad.

Wrapping It up…
I’ve really come to love the Atari Lynx and its quirky selection of games. I take it with me to work most days (my current collection of carts fit into the carrying case just fine), and I play games on it during my lunch break. So if you’re looking for a fun and colorful retro handheld, consider the Atari Lynx before anything else (including the Game Boy), especially before the collectability (and therefore the prices) of this ahead-of-its-time system start going up…you won’t regret it.

Eat. Sleep. LYNX. Repeat.

-Mark