Video Game Gazette

Atari Lynx Archive

Atari Lynx 1

The Atari Lynx was released in 1989 right on the heels of the Nintendo Gameboy. It was the first color handheld system. Its 3.4" screen dwarfs that of the Gameboy, and is backlit so you can play it in the dark.

Atari Lynx Carrying Case Measuring approximately 10" x 4" x 2" it is not as portable as the Gameboy, and is one of the largest handheld systems ever produced. To help port around this massive beast Atari released two carrying cases for the system. The deluxe case, pictured below, has ample room for the system, games, and accessiores. The smaller case only has room for the system and games. In contrast to the system, the games are very portable. They measure approximately 2" square and are the same thickness as a Turbo Grafx-16 HuCard.

Atari Lynx Large Carrying Case The Lynx runs on 6 AA batteries or 9V DC. The backlit screen draws alot of power, so Atari released an AC adaptor, car lighter adaptor, and external battery pack. Unfortunately these accessories make the system even less portable. Atari also released a Sun Visor so that you could play the system in the California sun.

The Lynx was designed by Epyx in 1987 and was later purchased by Atari. It uses a 65C02 CPU which is embedded in a custom chip dubbed Mikey. The system uses a 16 MHz crystal. It has a 16-bit graphics processor called Suzy which has hardware support for scaling. The system has a palette of 4096 colors. The sprite size can be programmed and the maximum number of sprites is in the range of 128. The screen has a resolution of 160 X 102 pixels.

Another of the Lynx's firsts was that it was made so that it could be played right or left handed. It also has some games that were played vertically. More than a decade later the Wonderswan used a similar design. The Lynx has a plethora of buttons. It has two sets of fire buttons, two option buttons, and a pause button. It also has multiplayer support for upto 16 players via daisy chained comlynx cables. A wireless IR adaptor was planned but never produced. A steering wheel expansion was also considered.

Atari Lynx II
In 1991 Atari released a second version of the Lynx. It was smaller than the original Lynx, although the screen was the same size. It featured a new low price, and could save power by turning off the screen.
Atari Lynx II box front
Atari Lynx II box top
Atari Lynx II box back

Atari Lynx Games

The following is a list of Lynx games. To this day companies are still producing software for the system, so the list is not final.


Atari Lynx APB box Atari Lynx APB back of box


Warbirds by Atari
Atari Lynx WarBirds box Atari Lynx WarBirds back of box


Toki by Tao Co.
Atari Lynx Toki box Atari Lynx Toki back of box


Atari Lynx box