Atari Lynx Console

Handheld

Region: All (region free)

The Atari Lynx is a hybrid 8/16-bit fourth generation handheld game console released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe and Japan. It was the first handheld game console with a color liquid-crystal display.

The Lynx was more advanced than Nintendo’s monochrome Game Boy, released two months earlier. It also competed with Sega’s Game Gear and NEC’s TurboExpress, released the following year.

The system was developed at Epyx by two former designers of the Amiga personal computers. The project was called the Handy Game or simply Handy. In 1991, Atari replaced the Lynx with a smaller model internally referred to as the Lynx II. Atari published a total of 73 games before the Lynx was discontinued in 1995 in preparation for the launch of the Atari Jaguar.

The Atari Lynx’s features include being the first color handheld, with a backlit display, a switchable right- and left-handed (upside down) configuration, and the ability to network with up to 15 other units via its Comlynx system. 

The Lynx was cited as the “first gaming console with hardware support for zooming and distortion of sprites”. Featuring a 4096 color palette and integrated math and graphics co-processors (including a blitter unit), its pseudo-3D color graphics display was said to be the key defining feature in the system’s competition against Nintendo’s monochromatic Game Boy. The fast pseudo-3D graphics features were made possible on a minimal hardware system by co-designer Dave Needle having “invented the technique for planar expansion/shrinking capability” and using stretched, textured, triangles instead of full polygons.

These are photographs of the actual handheld console we have in stock! The working screen has more lines in the photo than in real life. 

 Power: It uses 6x AA batteries (Not included)

Games: Here