Back in 1989 when i was 15 the only time i ever saw a Lynx was on ads on tv,magazines and retailers.To this very day i have never played on or touched a Lynx. I did however have a Sega Game gear. Great memories.
4 8bit channels is 32 bit sound? Then your typical el cheapo sound chip in modern PCs has at least 144 bit sound with 576 kHz sampling rate. Noice. (LOL marketing)
So with the same reasoning... isnt a 6502 or z80 also 16 bit cpus? The NES was a 16bit machine and we never new? Seems like bragging on the bit size was part of atari company culture
4 channels of 8-bit audio, capable of stereo... If I hadn't been paying attention, I could have thought you were talking about Paula in the Amiga, and not the Lynx. I always thought these were a neat little system, and far more powerful than the Gameboy or GameGear, it's a shame it wasn't more successful.
I doubt it personally. Good question, and perhaps it may have been more successful than it was, but I doubt it. After all, look what happened with the Amiga line around the same time frame and all the confusion there, going from A1000, A500 and A2000, to A3000, A500+, A600, CDTV, as well as the A2000, and still selling the C64, and working on the damn C65... Yes, I know not exactly the same time frame, but given delays inherent in going from planning to manufacture and release, this was a bad time for Commodore, even if it wasn't the worst time for them financially.
Ahh, yes, good point, I forgot about the disaster that was the "C64 Games System"... Shame those in charge had NFI, because they still had some brilliant engineers...
+Troy Wilkins they did indeed. Until they sacked them all and hired engineers from PC backgrounds according to Dave Pleasance. I agree with your conclusion, they may even of had the chance as Epyx had this working in 1986 and tried a few backers before Atari bit. They even tried Nintendo who made a better call with the Gameboy
Yes and no. Yes, Commodore certainly shot themselves in BOTH feet, repeatedly, when they let go of most of the original Amiga team, but I wouldn't say they didn't have any good engineers - Dave Haynie and some of those behind the A3000 - sadly I do not know all the names off the top of my head, despite having a web site dedicated to the history of the Amiga - were still reasonably competent, although yes they certainly had plenty of dead wood, even according to people like Dave.
I'm looking forward to this series. I bought my Lynx back in 1989 and still have it. The screen is pretty bad, I did a half-assed LED backlight mod a while ago and it really needs a revision. You can overclock a Lynx by switching in a 24mhz crystal, which is technically interesting if not that practical.
Thanks for sharing. I do remember the screen being awful and I think I'm going to end up splashing out on a replacement screen if I get it working and some games. That overclock mod sounds interesting. If I can get them both working then I could have some fun with the 2nd Lynx trying things like that, thanks!
Of course it was awful. Color LCDs at that time were relatively new and a high quality active matrix LCD of that size would cost as much as the whole Lynx! The Gameboy screen was awful too and had no backlight, color and had a response time measured in seconds.
The model 2 had a far better LCD than the model 1. I had a model 2 as a kid and when I purchased a model 1 later on, I was shocked at how poor the screen was in comparison.
Don't trust the caps! Even if they don't look bad, they're surely either dead or dying. I've run across a lot of Lynx consoles, as well as Game Gears & Turbo Express units, and every single one had a problem that could be traced back to a failed cap.
I have a Turbo Express that used to work fine when I put it away. Now I tried it recently as I as going to sell it but I get very weak audio to the point I can hardly hear it. It went from fine to broken just by sitting unused. I wonder if bad caps are the cause? I can't sell it with no sound.
Buenos días. Compré una Lynx para reparar. Todo funcionaba hasta que me equivoqué a la hora de soldar los cables de alimentación y puse positivo en negativo y el negativo en positivo. La consola dejó de funcionar. Creo que el fallo Puede estar en los diodos que están justo al lado de donde van soldado los cables de alimentación. Usted me podría decir cuál es el valor de cada 1 de estos tres diodos?
Yeah... Logic. XD Then again, 'bitness' was never a very logical measure. The original IBM 5150 PC was a 16 bit processor with an 8 bit external bus. The '16 bit' consoles both contain sub-components that use 8 bit buses as well. (in the case of the SNES the entire main system buses are 8 bit, though the CPU has 16 bit instructions, and the Graphics chip mostly works with 16 bit memory logic internally. The Mega Drive has a 16 bit CPU with some 32 bit instructions. And while it's main bus is 16 bit, parts of the connection the graphics chip are 8 bit, as is the Z80 co-processor used for sound...) The n64 genuinely has a 64 bit CPU (and the graphics chip has similar 64 bit features), but it uses RAMBUS memory that works using 9 bit serial communications, the Cartridge port uses multiplexed address/data logic over a 16 bit bus, the controller ports are single bit serial connections, and the memory address space is 32 bit. Plus, as much as it might be 64 bit capable, for all practical purposes an n64 runs 32 bit code 99% of the time... You can find stuff like this all over the place. on a Modern PC the memory bus is something like 384 bits, most of the CPU's internal operations are 64 bit, but some are 80 bit, or even 128 or 256 bit for vector operations, the memory address space may only be 36-40 bits... PCI express is a series of serial data links that can operate in parallel. (hence PCI-X 16x is 16 lanes of PCI express.) All matter of other weirdness too. In a modern sense, this 'x bit' stuff hasn't been remotely relevant since consoles got into the 32 bit era, and it's not even all that well defined past that point. Basically 32 bit+ the whole thing largely stops having meaning unless you specify the context. (64 bit processors generally mean being able to do calculations using 64 bit values - other stuff barely matters by the point you can talk about having an actual 64 bit processor.) Even in the 8/16 bit days it didn't matter as much as the marketing people claimed it did, and it was more of a shorthand for something else, to do with the actual capabilities of a system. The PC has always been at least a 16 bit system, yet the early PC's wouldn't give you that impression given what they were capable of. The Z80 CPU is in fact 4 bits internally. No, That's not a joke - seriously. But on the whole the performance of it in real computers is comparable to most systems that get referred to as 8 bit. It's not a well defined concept, yet marketers use it as if it has way more meaning than it actually does... And on top of that they then abuse it in clearly nonsensical ways whenever it suits them... Bleh. XD
I still have my Lynx, still in working order, although the screen is doing some wired things, I did think to replace the screen at some point but never got round to it.
While watching this it occurred to me that the Atari Lynx came out around the same time as the Megadrive and before the SNES. Makes me wonder if the system would have been better served as a regular console as it outmatches both 16-bit consoles with neither of them capable of hardware scaling and rotation of sprites. In fact, it would have left the consoles in the dust and gone head to head with the Neo Geo instead, if it was capable of handling 4x the pixel count at a 320x200'ish resolution.
I remember reading somewhere that the Handy guy's actually went to Nintendo ( Before the Gameboy existence was even known to the world ) to try and sell it to the Big N. They were the first people outside of Nintendo to even know of the existence of the Gameboy. The rest is history.
hey mate i loved these 2 vids and i got a question for you,i found my old lynx I in the warehouse a couple months ago and its missing the screen cover the back battaries cover and its stickers from the back,is there a way to find replacements for those?
This is brilliant. I was very lucky to own an Atari Lynx that I bought from the US. I loved that thing and especially Gauntlet and California Games. This brings back so many memories and makes me a little bit sad that I got rid of the unit a few years back :( Can't wait for Part 2.....
Was Sent here by the Gameboy Backlight Restoration Trash to Treasure video and Might I say that the Audio Recording has Substantially Upgraded! I am Amazed how for you can go in just over a year! Audio here is Very Compressed compared to the Quality I see in your Videos now :-) I am So grateful to see that people can in fact move Forward by just doing what they Love! The quality in Material has always been there though and that I Respect you for Greatly hence why you are one of my Favourite people to Watch!
@@RMCRetro again Kudos on swift Reply 😀 I am hoping you shall be as big as other TH-camrs I Follow in the next Year , you honestly deserve a lot more Subscribers and I hope this will be the case by then 😀
It's just not right seeing these Lynxes broken, bring these girls back to life! How long will it be before we see GPD's products on here? I give it ten years! (full disclosure, I have a GPD Win, she sexy!) Only one speaker on the Lynx? I thought the Lynx was stereo! 4 channels and 8 bit DACs on each one, exactly the same as the Amiga! You can't tell me there isn't a Paula somewhere inside Mikey or Suzy. But yeah, I'd love to see these old girls working again!
I had a lynx as a kid and so did least 5 of my friends, could have been more but i never played more than 6 player slime world. The day of the local lan party.
I have a lynx 2 that we got when they were blowing them out for $19 at Target. It was a chunky beast that ate batteries. I never got any more games for the system than what we bought at their fire sale, but I was always curious if they had any really good games.
I loved my Lynx 2 way back when. Some of my fave games were Gates of Zendecon, XYBOTS, TOKI (a solid conversion btw), Pac Land... and several more that I forget . Great handheld, despite it being power hungry.
The Amiga folks always gave their chips human names, usually female names, it makes sense that the Amiga folk who jumped ship to Atari called the main chips Mikey and Suzi.
I had one of these when I was in my twenties, when the buttons failed I would glue a carefully cut piece of aluminium to where the carbon conductor was.
I've just discovered your channel, i am an 'oldie at 60 years young but am very interested in retro computers and refurbishment having taught myself to be a fairly competent solderer! however i never dreamed that such 'deep refurbishment projects were feasible! THANK YOU for your inspirational enthusiasm which is very infectious!
Thank you sir I'm glad you're enjoying them! I've got a little carried away on the latest refurb of the Amstrad Mega PC, two more episodes on that will be released soon.
I have some old handhelds, like a Gameboy and GBA, Game gear, even a GPX2... but the Lynx I actually play :D - its the one handheld that I try to collect the games for, because it plays best on original hardware, with the same dodgy screen and bulk - emulation is quite pointless with the Lynx IMO.
I have a Lynx emu running on the PSVita. It is pretty good although it does look a bit odd, Lynx games look quite a bit different on a high contrast OLED screen.
I suppose the mikey chip was a duo core 16bit GPU while the suzy was just a fast 8bit cpu. The reason why both chips share half a megabyte is because the game has to be load into there instead and the work ram to process the game is 64KB, Yeah i readed about the idea of a cassette system rather then cartrides but the remaining start/stop signal pins are still there and maybe used now for homebrew games. And sony did made chip for later revisions of the lynx .
I had an Atari Lynx back in the 90s (yeah I know I'm old!) The power failed on that and I wished I kept it now so I could attempt to repair it. Oh well, off to eBay then I guess. Great videos btw :) can't wait to see the lcd upgrade you will do :)
The Atari Lynx series of hand held game systems were always my favorite - i had several model 1 and 2 . The Flip option was my favorite aspect of the system.
What a brilliant little project! I'm really looking forward to this one. I know quite a bit about computer and game history, but I'll admit I had no idea about the Amiga connection! I'll have to look into that in more detail. I assume what you meant by original design team you were referring to the original Hi-Toro Project Lorraine team that Jay Miner put together for the Amiga right? The pre-Commodore acquisition team? Definitely worth some research. Thanks! Can't wait for the rest of the series.
+Mentat001 that's correct on tbe original Lorraine project alongside Miner. They then both went on to work on the 3DO another interesting but unsuccessful machine commercially.
Sorry, but I completely disagree about the ability to flip being a “really useful capability.” Atari had some sick obsession with making controllers “ambidextrous” as if traditional control layouts have anything to to with handedness. Look at the Atari 5200 CX-52 controllers and the CX-53 Trak-Ball. They wasted an entire second keypad on the trackball! They continued this idiocy with the super-cramp-inducing Atari 7800 Proline joysticks. Luckily, Europeans got a standard gamepad.
I can see how sacrificing design to accommodate ambidextrous gaming is annoying, but in the case of the Lynx its symmetry lends itself well to a simple screen flip without sacrifices to ergonomics
RetroManCave ...but they are accommodating something virtually no one needed or asked for. They got it in their head that it was important and just dug in their heels for years while the world left them behind. There is nothing left or right handed about a standard controller design... same as a car. You play it as you learned it.
If it's not at the sacrifice of design or functionality then it's a good thing in my book. While those with different needs be them preference or accessibility to the mainstream are a minority it's good that they are catered for, especially on a handheld where choosing a different joystick isn't an option.
RetroManCave Ah, but it is st the expense of those things. Having a duplicate set of buttons impacted size and portability. If anything, portable game systems struggled with not having enough buttons and here Atari was wasting the extra buttons they had as duplicates of the first two, then they have buttons wasted on functions like Power On and Power Off. To add insult to injury, they STILL needed more buttons than they physically had (and wasted), so they ended up requiring you to press combinations of buttons for base system functions! I love the Lynx but it’s especially clear that the same person who was making these bad decisions from the early ‘80s was still with them and stubbornly forcing his ideas on them without ever learning his lesson. He got so hung-up on ambidextrous design he ruined several generations of Atari hardware without ever admiring he was wrong. They were barking up the wrong tree for sure.
It's an interesting line of thought, you clearly feel quite strongly about it so thank yu for sharing your thoughts in detail I appreciate it, and for watching
I remember overclocking my Lynx - just unsoldered the crystal and ran fly-leads out to an external crystal running slightly faster - helps a lot in sluggish games, but like any overclock, some games then run too fast. Never did get to the point of a switchable crystal, but that should be easy :-)
Never played a Lynx, noticed you were holding it as if you would operate the top set of A&B buttons, effectively covering over the speaker? Could you play right handed but use the lower set of buttons?
I assume you could use either set of buttons, and also headphones which were also mono on the Lynx1 but there was a revised Lynx2 with stereo headphone out. When we get it working I'll double check the buttons to see if Flip disables them.
I'm sure you know a game card must be inserted or it won't turn on. Maybe you can help solve the problem of the Lynx not properly starting and game cards needing cleaned.
Can’t wait to see the finished product, would love to see some 16 bit console trash to treasure vids, SNES, Megadrive or maybe Atari Jaguar! Which claimed to be 32 bit but didn’t look it lol
I use to loooove my Lynx. I'd play it for days and nights. I must find one for myself. I don't think it got enough praise for how good they truly were 😄
I bought one of these from my friend many, many years ago. The power adaptor socket was broken and it ate batteries every 3 hours, which cost a fortune to replace. I love Cali Games though. The BMX was just pure fun !
Can't wait for Part 2! I have a few working lynx's lying around here somewhere! Hopefully we see a future episode where you install a modern lcd into one of those lynx's, would love to know how difficult it is to do! Thanks for the awesome content!
+Adam Mann thanks for watching. Yes the LCD is not a cheap upgrade so I'm hanging back on that just yet but it would be a nice touch. There's also a eritable muticart available
Agreed it not being a cheap upgrade, i'm afraid to commit that much $$ to a new LCD, especially when i'm just not sure how much i'd actually use the lynx or breaking it during the upgrade! good luck!
Awesome video and machine. I made partial restoration of my lynx. But I remove the inverter and put a iphone 5 backlight. It works better than a pair of leds that I saw on other mods. Mcwill have a special screen for this machine, but they are quiet expensive.
1:02 Defiantly been apart before this one, as the screws on the button side are longer than the ones on the joypad side. If you put them back in the wrong hole this happens. The screw comes through the plastic on the front, nice place to mount and led though. PS: The lynx doesn't boot without a card in the slot.
Mine has x2 hole's. Not put there by myself, but when I stripped it down to clean it. That is when I noticed the different size screw's. Since then I have noticed quite a few for sale with the tell tale holes on the front. I also got mine as broken / no working, which it was until I put a game into it and Hey Presto. WORKING...
Were the screens better when they were new? Mine is pretty hard to see, although perfectly playable. I know LCD's have some components that degrade with time and light exposure.
@@micktaylor9332 lol I'm 41 in the UK, I literally have an Atari Lynx TV commercial on tape as a kid, the one with Toby Maguire, and it's on Betamax. My family didn't have a VHS until after 1990. I owned an Atari Lynx 2 around 1993.
+garybetts11 cheers Gary. As with all these videos I release them as soon as I finish what you see and start on the next part, so here's hoping we can fix it! I'll get cracking on it later today as caps etc have arrived
No, on the circuit board you have the 4 pads up down last and right. In the centre where the d pad rocker sits is a track that has no business being under it. This is going to get worn down and cut after use.
Oh I see yes, and there is a little sign of wear in the middle there. Perhaps a little protection could be applied in the form liquid tin or clear nail varnish just to give it a little protection without affecting the DPad or causing more wear. Interesting spot thank you
Back in 1989 when i was 15 the only time i ever saw a Lynx was on ads on tv,magazines and retailers.To this very day i have never played on or touched a Lynx. I did however have a Sega Game gear. Great memories.
My Body Is Ready
Me too! I have been waiting over 3 years for next video.
4 8bit channels is 32 bit sound? Then your typical el cheapo sound chip in modern PCs has at least 144 bit sound with 576 kHz sampling rate. Noice. (LOL marketing)
So with the same reasoning... isnt a 6502 or z80 also 16 bit cpus? The NES was a 16bit machine and we never new? Seems like bragging on the bit size was part of atari company culture
4 channels of 8-bit audio, capable of stereo... If I hadn't been paying attention, I could have thought you were talking about Paula in the Amiga, and not the Lynx. I always thought these were a neat little system, and far more powerful than the Gameboy or GameGear, it's a shame it wasn't more successful.
Something to ponder, would Commodore have made a success of it?
I doubt it personally. Good question, and perhaps it may have been more successful than it was, but I doubt it. After all, look what happened with the Amiga line around the same time frame and all the confusion there, going from A1000, A500 and A2000, to A3000, A500+, A600, CDTV, as well as the A2000, and still selling the C64, and working on the damn C65... Yes, I know not exactly the same time frame, but given delays inherent in going from planning to manufacture and release, this was a bad time for Commodore, even if it wasn't the worst time for them financially.
Ahh, yes, good point, I forgot about the disaster that was the "C64 Games System"... Shame those in charge had NFI, because they still had some brilliant engineers...
+Troy Wilkins they did indeed. Until they sacked them all and hired engineers from PC backgrounds according to Dave Pleasance. I agree with your conclusion, they may even of had the chance as Epyx had this working in 1986 and tried a few backers before Atari bit. They even tried Nintendo who made a better call with the Gameboy
Yes and no. Yes, Commodore certainly shot themselves in BOTH feet, repeatedly, when they let go of most of the original Amiga team, but I wouldn't say they didn't have any good engineers - Dave Haynie and some of those behind the A3000 - sadly I do not know all the names off the top of my head, despite having a web site dedicated to the history of the Amiga - were still reasonably competent, although yes they certainly had plenty of dead wood, even according to people like Dave.
Really enjoying your videos! You have a superb narrating voice and the production on your videos is top.
I don't really see why being able to flip the controls was useful. I'm left handed and haven't ever wished I could switch the controls around.
I had forgotten about the lynx. Can’t wait to see it up and running 😁👍
I need part 2! NOW!!!!! ;)
Hehe I'm working on it, I need a working Lynx NOW!!! :D
Haha get crackin mon! I love this stuff! :)
lucas rainford yeah me too, i hate if video's are splite into 2 parts while having to wait a while till part 2 arrives,o,o,o.
Wow that back-light is intense! Is that a standard fluorescent tube or a ccfl?
Used to write programs for the Lynx - great system!
I'm looking forward to this series.
I bought my Lynx back in 1989 and still have it. The screen is pretty bad, I did a half-assed LED backlight mod a while ago and it really needs a revision. You can overclock a Lynx by switching in a 24mhz crystal, which is technically interesting if not that practical.
Thanks for sharing. I do remember the screen being awful and I think I'm going to end up splashing out on a replacement screen if I get it working and some games. That overclock mod sounds interesting. If I can get them both working then I could have some fun with the 2nd Lynx trying things like that, thanks!
Of course it was awful. Color LCDs at that time were relatively new and a high quality active matrix LCD of that size would cost as much as the whole Lynx! The Gameboy screen was awful too and had no backlight, color and had a response time measured in seconds.
That's true, it was indeed a screen of its time
The model 2 had a far better LCD than the model 1. I had a model 2 as a kid and when I purchased a model 1 later on, I was shocked at how poor the screen was in comparison.
California games! Now there’s a happy childhood memory reignited. Thanks 👍🏻
Nice video, recent sub coming from LGR. looking forward for more stuff like this! will surely check older videos too!
+Thener Oliveira Welcome! A friend of LGR is a friend of the cave
thanks man!
Don't trust the caps! Even if they don't look bad, they're surely either dead or dying. I've run across a lot of Lynx consoles, as well as Game Gears & Turbo Express units, and every single one had a problem that could be traced back to a failed cap.
+Shmeh Fleh as said I'll be replacing them
I have a Turbo Express that used to work fine when I put it away. Now I tried it recently as I as going to sell it but I get very weak audio to the point I can hardly hear it. It went from fine to broken just by sitting unused. I wonder if bad caps are the cause? I can't sell it with no sound.
Restore one..... Mod the other!
The Chris sounds like a good plan to me
Buenos días. Compré una Lynx para reparar. Todo funcionaba hasta que me equivoqué a la hora de soldar los cables de alimentación y puse positivo en negativo y el negativo en positivo. La consola dejó de funcionar. Creo que el fallo
Puede estar en los diodos que están justo al lado de donde van soldado los cables de alimentación. Usted me podría decir cuál es el valor de cada 1 de estos tres diodos?
7:58 by that logic Commodore 64 is a 16 bit computer too. Or NES. Or even gameboy. Marketing people are evil.
Agreed!
Byt that logic... just add all the bits together that were in Sega Saturn CPUs, VPUs and APUs...
Ilja Sara, that's exactly what Atari did with the Jaguar. Two separate 32 bit co-processors = 64 bits!
Haha. Awesome. :D Why didn't SEGA claimed Saturn to be at least 128-bit? :( I'm kinda disappionted.
Yeah... Logic. XD
Then again, 'bitness' was never a very logical measure. The original IBM 5150 PC was a 16 bit processor with an 8 bit external bus.
The '16 bit' consoles both contain sub-components that use 8 bit buses as well.
(in the case of the SNES the entire main system buses are 8 bit, though the CPU has 16 bit instructions, and the Graphics chip mostly works with 16 bit memory logic internally. The Mega Drive has a 16 bit CPU with some 32 bit instructions. And while it's main bus is 16 bit, parts of the connection the graphics chip are 8 bit, as is the Z80 co-processor used for sound...)
The n64 genuinely has a 64 bit CPU (and the graphics chip has similar 64 bit features), but it uses RAMBUS memory that works using 9 bit serial communications, the Cartridge port uses multiplexed address/data logic over a 16 bit bus, the controller ports are single bit serial connections, and the memory address space is 32 bit. Plus, as much as it might be 64 bit capable, for all practical purposes an n64 runs 32 bit code 99% of the time...
You can find stuff like this all over the place.
on a Modern PC the memory bus is something like 384 bits, most of the CPU's internal operations are 64 bit, but some are 80 bit, or even 128 or 256 bit for vector operations, the memory address space may only be 36-40 bits...
PCI express is a series of serial data links that can operate in parallel. (hence PCI-X 16x is 16 lanes of PCI express.)
All matter of other weirdness too.
In a modern sense, this 'x bit' stuff hasn't been remotely relevant since consoles got into the 32 bit era, and it's not even all that well defined past that point.
Basically 32 bit+ the whole thing largely stops having meaning unless you specify the context.
(64 bit processors generally mean being able to do calculations using 64 bit values - other stuff barely matters by the point you can talk about having an actual 64 bit processor.)
Even in the 8/16 bit days it didn't matter as much as the marketing people claimed it did, and it was more of a shorthand for something else, to do with the actual capabilities of a system. The PC has always been at least a 16 bit system, yet the early PC's wouldn't give you that impression given what they were capable of.
The Z80 CPU is in fact 4 bits internally. No, That's not a joke - seriously. But on the whole the performance of it in real computers is comparable to most systems that get referred to as 8 bit.
It's not a well defined concept, yet marketers use it as if it has way more meaning than it actually does...
And on top of that they then abuse it in clearly nonsensical ways whenever it suits them...
Bleh. XD
I still have my Lynx, still in working order, although the screen is doing some wired things, I did think to replace the screen at some point but never got round to it.
While watching this it occurred to me that the Atari Lynx came out around the same time as the Megadrive and before the SNES. Makes me wonder if the system would have been better served as a regular console as it outmatches both 16-bit consoles with neither of them capable of hardware scaling and rotation of sprites.
In fact, it would have left the consoles in the dust and gone head to head with the Neo Geo instead, if it was capable of handling 4x the pixel count at a 320x200'ish resolution.
I remember reading somewhere that the Handy guy's actually went to Nintendo ( Before the Gameboy existence was even known to the world ) to try and sell it to the Big N. They were the first people outside of Nintendo to even know of the existence of the Gameboy. The rest is history.
There are so few videos that treat the Lynx fairly. Excellent work.
That's a heck of a lot of RAM for a console of the era...upon further examination they shadowed the cartridge so work RAM was often less.
Wow, I've got one downstairs which I found in my parents house. I think I got it in 91 or 92
hey mate i loved these 2 vids and i got a question for you,i found my old lynx I in the warehouse a couple months ago and its missing the screen cover the back battaries cover and its stickers from the back,is there a way to find replacements for those?
What a great find! Gonna enjoy this series!
This is brilliant. I was very lucky to own an Atari Lynx that I bought from the US. I loved that thing and especially Gauntlet and California Games. This brings back so many memories and makes me a little bit sad that I got rid of the unit a few years back :( Can't wait for Part 2.....
Was Sent here by the Gameboy Backlight Restoration Trash to Treasure video and Might I say that the Audio Recording has Substantially Upgraded! I am Amazed how for you can go in just over a year! Audio here is Very Compressed compared to the Quality I see in your Videos now :-) I am So grateful to see that people can in fact move Forward by just doing what they Love! The quality in Material has always been there though and that I Respect you for Greatly hence why you are one of my Favourite people to Watch!
P.S no Criticism intended at all it was in Fact a Compliment :-)
Thanks Nathan, we've come a long way but always in small steps, it's amazing how they can all add up. I wonder where we'll be in another year!
@@RMCRetro again Kudos on swift Reply 😀 I am hoping you shall be as big as other TH-camrs I Follow in the next Year , you honestly deserve a lot more Subscribers and I hope this will be the case by then 😀
It's just not right seeing these Lynxes broken, bring these girls back to life!
How long will it be before we see GPD's products on here? I give it ten years! (full disclosure, I have a GPD Win, she sexy!)
Only one speaker on the Lynx? I thought the Lynx was stereo!
4 channels and 8 bit DACs on each one, exactly the same as the Amiga! You can't tell me there isn't a Paula somewhere inside Mikey or Suzy.
But yeah, I'd love to see these old girls working again!
I had a lynx as a kid and so did least 5 of my friends, could have been more but i never played more than 6 player slime world. The day of the local lan party.
I have a lynx 2 that we got when they were blowing them out for $19 at Target.
It was a chunky beast that ate batteries. I never got any more games for the system than what we bought at their fire sale, but I was always curious if they had any really good games.
I'm hooked. Didn't remember anything about this device until I saw the ad with the skeletons, suddenly it all came back!
I loved my Lynx 2 way back when. Some of my fave games were Gates of Zendecon, XYBOTS, TOKI (a solid conversion btw), Pac Land... and several more that I forget . Great handheld, despite it being power hungry.
The Amiga folks always gave their chips human names, usually female names, it makes sense that the Amiga folk who jumped ship to Atari called the main chips Mikey and Suzi.
I remember a kid in my class had one but it was so awkward to hold everyone still preferred to play the GameBoy.
Does anyone have a kit to recommend for the conductive material needed to get the buttons working? (He talked about it at 5:30.)
What is the membrane at the top of the screen that wraps over from the back? Mine is torn a bit and isn’t really connected to anything.
Check the connectors on the game card slot. The lynx wont power up without a game properly connected to it.
Remember talking about the lynx at school better never got to play on one. Had the trusty Gameboy.
Shame you don't have the mk2 version... slightly better ergonomicly
i have one in its original box and it still works :)
I had one of these when I was in my twenties, when the buttons failed I would glue a carefully cut piece of aluminium to where the carbon conductor was.
I've just discovered your channel, i am an 'oldie at 60 years young but am very interested in retro computers and refurbishment having taught myself to be a fairly competent solderer! however i never dreamed that such 'deep refurbishment projects were feasible! THANK YOU for your inspirational enthusiasm which is very infectious!
Thank you sir I'm glad you're enjoying them! I've got a little carried away on the latest refurb of the Amstrad Mega PC, two more episodes on that will be released soon.
I have some old handhelds, like a Gameboy and GBA, Game gear, even a GPX2... but the Lynx I actually play :D - its the one handheld that I try to collect the games for, because it plays best on original hardware, with the same dodgy screen and bulk - emulation is quite pointless with the Lynx IMO.
I have a Lynx emu running on the PSVita. It is pretty good although it does look a bit odd, Lynx games look quite a bit different on a high contrast OLED screen.
I never played one but I remember me & my friend were desperate to get our hands on one in the early 90s
theres this kid with a Atari lynx in childs play 3
I suppose the mikey chip was a duo core 16bit GPU while the suzy was just a fast 8bit cpu.
The reason why both chips share half a megabyte is because the game has to be load into there instead and the work ram to process the game is 64KB,
Yeah i readed about the idea of a cassette system rather then cartrides but the remaining start/stop signal pins are still there and maybe used now for homebrew games.
And sony did made chip for later revisions of the lynx .
The Lynx also has boot up encryption. Hasbro released the key years ago.
+A Floyd indeed I understand there's a tool to strip it from ROMs which is useful for multicarts. Good of Hasbro to release it
Link the lynx to other linked lynxeses linces lyncem?
+Tokyo Phonic linking up with other Lynx owners on LinkedIn via Lync now sir
I had an Atari Lynx back in the 90s (yeah I know I'm old!) The power failed on that and I wished I kept it now so I could attempt to repair it. Oh well, off to eBay then I guess. Great videos btw :) can't wait to see the lcd upgrade you will do :)
+Ace1066 me too although it's really not a cheap upgrade so we'll have to see. There's also a rewritable multi cart I'd quite like
Very cool. I had one as a kid. I’ve been a fan of handheld consoles ever sense.
Still have mine and it still works although It seems to be the slightly smaller version.
Really enjoyed this series. The Lynx is up there with the likes of the Neo Geo Pocket and Game Gear as a wonderful yet under appreciated handheld.
Nice!
So, a lot of AMIGA in this "little" Lynx.
Can't wait to see the new LCD display.
The Atari Lynx series of hand held game systems were always my favorite - i had several model 1 and 2 . The Flip option was my favorite aspect of the system.
What a brilliant little project! I'm really looking forward to this one. I know quite a bit about computer and game history, but I'll admit I had no idea about the Amiga connection! I'll have to look into that in more detail. I assume what you meant by original design team you were referring to the original Hi-Toro Project Lorraine team that Jay Miner put together for the Amiga right? The pre-Commodore acquisition team? Definitely worth some research. Thanks! Can't wait for the rest of the series.
+Mentat001 that's correct on tbe original Lorraine project alongside Miner. They then both went on to work on the 3DO another interesting but unsuccessful machine commercially.
Sorry, but I completely disagree about the ability to flip being a “really useful capability.” Atari had some sick obsession with making controllers “ambidextrous” as if traditional control layouts have anything to to with handedness. Look at the Atari 5200 CX-52 controllers and the CX-53 Trak-Ball. They wasted an entire second keypad on the trackball! They continued this idiocy with the super-cramp-inducing Atari 7800 Proline joysticks. Luckily, Europeans got a standard gamepad.
I can see how sacrificing design to accommodate ambidextrous gaming is annoying, but in the case of the Lynx its symmetry lends itself well to a simple screen flip without sacrifices to ergonomics
RetroManCave ...but they are accommodating something virtually no one needed or asked for. They got it in their head that it was important and just dug in their heels for years while the world left them behind. There is nothing left or right handed about a standard controller design... same as a car. You play it as you learned it.
If it's not at the sacrifice of design or functionality then it's a good thing in my book. While those with different needs be them preference or accessibility to the mainstream are a minority it's good that they are catered for, especially on a handheld where choosing a different joystick isn't an option.
RetroManCave Ah, but it is st the expense of those things. Having a duplicate set of buttons impacted size and portability. If anything, portable game systems struggled with not having enough buttons and here Atari was wasting the extra buttons they had as duplicates of the first two, then they have buttons wasted on functions like Power On and Power Off. To add insult to injury, they STILL needed more buttons than they physically had (and wasted), so they ended up requiring you to press combinations of buttons for base system functions!
I love the Lynx but it’s especially clear that the same person who was making these bad decisions from the early ‘80s was still with them and stubbornly forcing his ideas on them without ever learning his lesson. He got so hung-up on ambidextrous design he ruined several generations of Atari hardware without ever admiring he was wrong. They were barking up the wrong tree for sure.
It's an interesting line of thought, you clearly feel quite strongly about it so thank yu for sharing your thoughts in detail I appreciate it, and for watching
Nice choice of music - Beat Your Competition - Vibe Tracks
I remember overclocking my Lynx - just unsoldered the crystal and ran fly-leads out to an external crystal running slightly faster - helps a lot in sluggish games, but like any overclock, some games then run too fast. Never did get to the point of a switchable crystal, but that should be easy :-)
That does sound like an interesting mod. Maybe if I can get both working I can use one as a mule for fun mods and keep one original
Never played a Lynx, noticed you were holding it as if you would operate the top set of A&B buttons, effectively covering over the speaker? Could you play right handed but use the lower set of buttons?
I assume you could use either set of buttons, and also headphones which were also mono on the Lynx1 but there was a revised Lynx2 with stereo headphone out. When we get it working I'll double check the buttons to see if Flip disables them.
Gordon Harwoods - High St Alfreton Derbys - lol
Already know I'm gonna like this :)
ahahaha. I nearly spurted out my ginger beer when you mentioned the 4x 8 bit = 32 bit sound!!! :) They really did!!!
"Do the math" ;)
Hey, Nice vid. Thanks!
p.s:
"flanked"?? Do you play World of Tanks or similar by chance? ;)
Thanks for watching. I do not play WOT 🕹
I’m sure you’ve trolled my childhood. I used to own a LYNX too. Keep it up.
Nice video. As a kid I wanted a Lynx but I could not afford one. I was happy to have my Amiga.
the Amiga cost 4 times the Lynx
I'm sure you know a game card must be inserted or it won't turn on. Maybe you can help solve the problem of the Lynx not properly starting and game cards needing cleaned.
+A Floyd Good point I should make that clear. I'll mention it in the next episode but can confirm they are dead even with games in.
Can’t wait to see the finished product, would love to see some 16 bit console trash to treasure vids, SNES, Megadrive or maybe Atari Jaguar! Which claimed to be 32 bit but didn’t look it lol
I use to loooove my Lynx. I'd play it for days and nights. I must find one for myself. I don't think it got enough praise for how good they truly were 😄
I loved the games Epyx made back in the day, for the C64.
And my god, the day I got a Epyx Fast Loader cartridge for my floppy...life was good :-D
This is like Computer Retro Porn - love it.
Projects I can add more slap bass if you want? Pt2 lands later today. Thanks for watching
I bought one of these from my friend many, many years ago. The power adaptor socket was broken and it ate batteries every 3 hours, which cost a fortune to replace. I love Cali Games though. The BMX was just pure fun !
Can't wait for Part 2! I have a few working lynx's lying around here somewhere! Hopefully we see a future episode where you install a modern lcd into one of those lynx's, would love to know how difficult it is to do! Thanks for the awesome content!
+Adam Mann thanks for watching. Yes the LCD is not a cheap upgrade so I'm hanging back on that just yet but it would be a nice touch. There's also a eritable muticart available
Agreed it not being a cheap upgrade, i'm afraid to commit that much $$ to a new LCD, especially when i'm just not sure how much i'd actually use the lynx or breaking it during the upgrade! good luck!
Could the older screen be fitted/upgraded with an Led Light Source?
Yes it has been done.
The raw power of the Lynx is unreal. Two 16Mhz CPU's, unlimited sprites and scaling. One of my best ever consoles.
I cannot wait for this series! I have both the Lynx and Lynx II which I should probably restore. :-)
Awesome video and machine. I made partial restoration of my lynx. But I remove the inverter and put a iphone 5 backlight. It works better than a pair of leds that I saw on other mods. Mcwill have a special screen for this machine, but they are quiet expensive.
Edu Arana love that LED idea. If you check my videos I fit the McWill mod into it
Great! yeah, mcwill products are great, i made a mod on a GG some years ago using the mcwill screen.
Subbed. Keep doing these.
Great video as always and thank you for skooling me on some technicas of this handheld. Very apriciated :)
Looking forward to the next part(s).
Great video. My original Lynx is made in Japan. Anywhere else I wonder?
1:02 Defiantly been apart before this one, as the screws on the button side are longer than the ones on the joypad side. If you put them back in the wrong hole this happens. The screw comes through the plastic on the front, nice place to mount and led though.
PS: The lynx doesn't boot without a card in the slot.
+The Pumpking King ah that would explain the hole. Yes I tried with a card in :D makong good progress on the repair
Mine has x2 hole's. Not put there by myself, but when I stripped it down to clean it. That is when I noticed the different size screw's. Since then I have noticed quite a few for sale with the tell tale holes on the front. I also got mine as broken / no working, which it was until I put a game into it and Hey Presto. WORKING...
Were the screens better when they were new? Mine is pretty hard to see, although perfectly playable. I know LCD's have some components that degrade with time and light exposure.
It's likely that it has degraded but even brand new the screens were very poor. They often develop lines down them and other artefacts over time.
They were never very good from new, I had a Lynx 2 and they look even worse by todays standards. Still a great machine though.
Wasn't there a real semi portable one called the Lynx 2 that was smaller.
There was a later model 2 which was a nice update. The mcwill screen also fits in the 2
Great video. Well presented and researched. Look forward to next part.
Cool project. Looking forward to the next vid.
@retromancave when does part 2 comes`?
+Espen Albertsen parts arrived today so it will be the next release some time next week if all goes well
excellent :)
2019: Waaaa.. my bezel is too big
Atari: hold my brick
It wasn't the first ever colour handheld console, the sega gamegear was.
Wrong. The Atari Lynx came out in 1989, The Game Gear was 1990
@@alexojideagu no way. I had a game gear when I was a kid but I'm 43 now lol. I'm surprised the lynx was first. Thanks anyway.
@@micktaylor9332 lol I'm 41 in the UK, I literally have an Atari Lynx TV commercial on tape as a kid, the one with Toby Maguire, and it's on Betamax. My family didn't have a VHS until after 1990. I owned an Atari Lynx 2 around 1993.
The plural of lynx is simply lynx. Like deer, moose, or sheep.
Lynges.
+Konjono Awesome TIL the collective noun is a "chain" of Lynx. I like that.
Wow looks awesome, I can't wait for part 2 I've always wanted one of theses great vid mate 👍
+garybetts11 cheers Gary. As with all these videos I release them as soon as I finish what you see and start on the next part, so here's hoping we can fix it! I'll get cracking on it later today as caps etc have arrived
Thanks for giving these a good home.
Thanks for watching
You're welcome. I just hate to see things thrown away if they can be fixed.
Great video as usual sir
+Jimfowler82 cheers Jim
What kind of tripod do you use please?
+delatroy just a generic no brand job, I'd like to get a new one for smoother panning but post processing irons out the kinks for now
RetroManCave oh thanks. I have one for Iphone but it doesn’t swivel down that easily. Have an amazon link plz?
Notice the track directly under the d pad rocker? Tell me that wasn't deliberate.
Michael Pascoe the round hole? Odd isn't it. Certainly looks like a screwdriver or dremel rather than an accident. Quite why I can't figure out!
Mine has that same hole! Pretty sure in a previous repair, someone used a too long screw.
No, on the circuit board you have the 4 pads up down last and right. In the centre where the d pad rocker sits is a track that has no business being under it. This is going to get worn down and cut after use.
Oh I see yes, and there is a little sign of wear in the middle there. Perhaps a little protection could be applied in the form liquid tin or clear nail varnish just to give it a little protection without affecting the DPad or causing more wear. Interesting spot thank you
Where is part 2
John Raymond T. Domingo in progress. Parts arrived this weekend
It’s lynxesis
delatroy A litter of Lynx?
When can we expect part 2?
CrossedCoder Early this week, I've been working on it today
RetroManCave Thanks for the update, I can’t wait! Keep up the good work👌
Absolutely love this series!
I had one of these. Sold it to pay for a driving lesson. It was a decent little gadget, and I miss it!
Lynx was the best, far better than the dodgy old Gameboy :)