Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: jj on December 12, 2006, 05:47:10 PM
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Well I never knew this
"The developer's kit for the Lynx was expensive and required an Amiga computer (Atari's own ST computers could not be used). 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."
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:bump:
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Didn´t know that either. Must have been a thorn in their eye. :-)
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Awsome stuff.
I know a friend who happens to have an Atari Lynx system still. Amiga made it possible for the Video Toaster, so definately cool it made it possible for the Atari Lynx. :-)
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The Lynx was really powerful, more powerful than an Atari ST.
although mine has cheap paint that is wearing off.
It was also marketed against Nintendo with edgy adverts, (http://www.atari-explorer.com/lynx/lynx.html) you know, as the more mature, serious system.
Funny how history may just repeat itself.
I take that back, it was about as powerful as a 520ST.
:-P
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Interesting and funny.
Also Sega used the Amiga 500 for developing on the megadrive.
It's amazing the things that the Amiga done in the past for another systems.
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I have a Lynx, one of the original, over-sized bricks. It is pretty neat.
I heard about Sega using Amiga for development, and I'd love to get my hands on one of those kits. I have a couple of games I would like to see developed, but I'm so far out of my programming days I'm afraid it would take forever to get it done completely by hand.
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Ive still got my Lynx from release, SOTB is my favourite game, better than the Amiga version, less frustrating, more fun.
It was kinda cool that they used Amigas as development platforms.
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as a horse , i have little to say on the subject. other than, neigh.
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I still have my old lynx (1st version) somewhere around my parents' home. It had a very Amiga'ish internal design. Its main CPU wasn't a very powerful one (I think it was just a 6502 at 8MHz). It had a very powerful blitter chip that was pulling through with the graphics. It was the most effects-capable portable for many-many years.
Most of it's games were Amiga ports (Shadow of the Beast, Rygar, Toki etc). Some other original titles are either utter crap (Kung Food) or breathtaking masterpieces (Zarlor, Blue Lightning).
There is still an active community for the Lynx of 500+ users circulated around the Atariage (http://www.atariage.com) website. new games are still being produced by Songbird Productions and Duranik, and they are pretty good. Especially Alpine Games (http://www.ataritimes.com/article.php?showarticle=391) by the second. It has some really impressive snowflake effects running on portable (well not really :lol: ) hardware of 1988. Of course Atari, once again gave the impression that they actually TRIED to screw the platform over! :-x
EDIT: corrected typos
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Hay, hamtronix,
Why the long face ?
:python:
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I always thought the Game Gear was better than the Lynx?
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The Game Gear was far-far below Lynx in terms of processing capabilities. Have a look here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx) and here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Game_Gear)
Lynx had fewer colors but it sported a 16 bit blitter (named "Suzy" in a genuine Amiga fashion), math co-processor (allowing vector graphics- sadly no game in it's heyday used vectors), drew less power and, allowed for left handed gaming and in general, was a much more sopisticated design. Game Gear was actually a Sega Master System with double the colors. :-P
Get the handy emulator (if you get to use a PC) and try out Blue Lightning, Zarlor, Alien vs Predator (prototype), STUN Runner. You will be STUNned!
Lynx Rules :ponder:
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Van_M wrote:
...sadly no game in it's heyday used vectors...
SteelTalons.
By hardware specs, Lynx ruled the roost up till around when the GBA hit the scene.
Btw, you can overclock the Lynx1 by switching the clock crystal from 16Mhz to 24Mhz, done it, and it works, SteelTalons runs smooth, DoubleDragon quick etc.
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Overclocking, eh? I'll have to give this one a try. I'd love to see a smooth running Steel Talons.
Yeah, I have a Game Gear as well, and it's definitely less spec-tacular than the Lynx. As is the fashion, the better products generally go the wayside for whatever reasons. Like my NeoGeo Pocket -- the only bad part about this unit is the reflective TFT.
The best portable I own is the Nomad (out of the NeoGeo Pocket, Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and original Gameboy.) Full Sega carts in a hand-held. It can also output SVHS, composite, and stereo sound. With an RF modulator and another controller, it can even be used as a quasi-full Sega Genesis. I can't find my SVHS cable, though :-(
One thing I think is really neat about the Lynx was the planned networking capability with the Jaguar. It was intended to work much like the Game Cube and the GBA (I think, maybe the DS?) work. But Atari kept slipping release dates and developers dropped like flies. Ah, well. I had a chance to pick up a Jaguar, CD-ROM, and a few titles from a surplus dealer for $25 total. Kinda wish I had.
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I've always been looking out for a HANDY (that was the prototype name for the Lynx) devkit (the bit that went in the Amiga). So far no sign of one.
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I'm a huge Atari Lynx fan, and game programmer. I've
recently acquire one of these "Howard/Howdy" Lynx
Development Systems. Very cool unit. I discovered
this forum, when I searched the internet to learn
about how the DevKit interfaces with my Amiga 2000.
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nimtene wrote:
I'm a huge Atari Lynx fan, and game programmer. I've
recently acquire one of these "Howard/Howdy" Lynx
Development Systems. Very cool unit. I discovered
this forum, when I searched the internet to learn
about how the DevKit interfaces with my Amiga 2000.
I really wanted one of those dev kits a few years back, but now I dont have the Amiga to fit it anymore. And now I have a GP2X and Lynx emu, my old Lynx is virtually redundant except for reasons of nostalgia.
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>Get the handy emulator (if you get to use a PC)
Handy is available for Amiga too, I helped port it :-)
>I've recently acquire one of these "Howard/Howdy" Lynx
Development Systems.
Any chance you could upload the software components of this? they need preservation and I wouldn't mind doing some homebrew games...
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>Any chance you could upload the software components of this? they need preservation and I wouldn't mind doing some homebrew games...
Sounds like a great idea to me. I'll be sure to
do this once I get my A2000 working properly.
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Minuous wrote:
>Get the handy emulator (if you get to use a PC)
Handy is available for Amiga too, I helped port it :-)
Minuous, what were the system specs for that port? I ported Handy to "that other" 680xx-based system, and since there doesn't seem to be any obvious mechanisms for frame skipping in the source I had trouble getting any reasonable performance out of it, not even on a 100MHz 68060.. I didn't use SDL or anything like that, and I'm fairly sure that my I/O and frame buffer code is fairly optimized (I used Mikael Kalms 4-bit C2P stuff to save bandwidth)
Well, sorry folks, of topic but... well... have mercy.
-- Peter
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It's compiled for 68040+, however it crawls along very slowly on my A1200/060, realistically you would need a PowerPC. On a P4/2400 running WinUAE it is still not full speed but is more or less playable. I would imagine it would easily reach full speed under Amithlon or similar.
It seems that the only fast emulators for low-end Amigas are the ones written in assembler, the ones written in C are just too slow, as a general observation.
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Lynx is more powerful than Amiga 500 I think. Blue lightning on Amiga 500 would be impossible.
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If an Amiga was used as the software development platform, wouldn't it be possible to run Workbench on a Lynx too? :-D Sounds like the very first Minimig :-P
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No, it wouldn't. Being the "development platform" merely means that the (cross-)assemblers etc. run on the Amiga and produce Lynx code, and presumably there is also a connection from the serial port to the ComLynx port to enable uploading of such code to the Lynx for testing.
That doesn't mean the Amiga is able to emulate the Lynx, let alone the Lynx emulating the Amiga :-) if only!!
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Minuous wrote:
It's compiled for 68040+, however it crawls along very slowly on my A1200/060, realistically you would need a PowerPC. On a P4/2400 running WinUAE it is still not full speed but is more or less playable. I would imagine it would easily reach full speed under Amithlon or similar.
It seems that the only fast emulators for low-end Amigas are the ones written in assembler, the ones written in C are just too slow, as a general observation.
Yeah, true. But actually there are a few emulators which runs much better than one might expect on 060-based systems - provided that one implements native screen drivers and custom sound emulation. For example, SMS Plus runs in 60FPS with PSG emulation on the Falcon/CT60.. My Handy port runs at approx 50% atm, but I think frame skipping and some other hacks in the source could bring it up to 100%.. Even though I can save some cycles by only performing the C2P conversion say, every 4th frame, the emulator still calculates/scales sprites etc. each frame.. I tried to implement something that solves this, but it seems like what works in one game doesn't work with the other etc.
-- Peter
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A Falcon programmer, how cool is that ;-)
For best compatibility, you will still need to emulate every frame, it's only the final "copy display buffer to screen" step that can be safely skipped for non-display frames, unfortunately.