10 replies to this topic

[macsociety]

I was kind of familiar that Epyx and Atari were related in terms of the Atari Lynx handheld gaming system but was unaware Amiga was in the mix.

In a bulk purchase of goods I acquired a rather slick 3" thick big blue binder with the Atari and Lynx logo on the cover. It has on the cover "Handy Specification" with dates going back to 1987 up to 1989. Opening the binder the first page is a Atari cover letter and it discusses that this binder is for the Lynx Development System. The interesting thing is this Development System is based around an Amiga A2000 Computer. That I did not know.

So, guessing here, but did Epyx design the Lynx with Atari or sell it to them and Atari took it over and was Epyx using an Amiga based system to create apps and stuff for the Atari Lynx?

Here is a picture of the Binder and a scan of the page that mentions the Amiga A2000.

Enjoy! Rather neat little Binder I have in my collection next to my Lynx.

tj

[The_Laird]

Epyx sold the Lynx to Atari and much to their annoyance the Amiga development system was already in place.

[macsociety]

The_Laird, on Tue Nov 30, 2010 12:35 PM, said:

Epyx sold the Lynx to Atari and much to their annoyance the Amiga development system was already in place.

Interesting.

8-)

tj

[macsociety]

Couple images of the table of contents for the first section of the book. It has many sections but this is the first. Later sections talks about doing music for the Lynx and you name it. Seems like this book was the Bible for the Epyx Handy that was then taken over by Atari and renamed the Lynx. Reading a bit it talks about how Epyx and Atari worked on this and renaming to Lynx. Interesting read. I guess if I was into programming for the Lynx, this book would really be helpful. I just play the few games on it from time to time so may be wasted on me but still, nice little thing to have of behind the scenes early Atari Lynx stuff.

tj

[the.golden.ax]

You should get Atari Age member Peter Engelbrite to sign that for you!

AX

[Tursi]

Hehe... I had an official manual but never got the development hardware to make it useful. After my NDA expired it ended up going to some homebrewers who were trying to crack the Lynx.. I never found out if my manual was helpful or not, but this makes me wonder where it ended up.

[108 Stars]

The Amiga being the dev system for the Lynx had a simple reason afair:

Dave Needle and R.J. Mical were the designers of the Lynx. As it happens both of them had been in the development team of the Amiga computers before.
So it was an obvious choice to have their new hardware use their own previous hardware as dev system.

Atari only bought the rights later on in 1988 when that was already decided. Still a nice irony that the Tramiels had to buy Amigas now; after all they had funded much of the Amiga-development before Commodore snatched the technology. A bitter reminder of their loss of the chipset that gave the Amiga the edge over the ST for gaming. Imagine Microsoft having to buy Macs for Windows development.^^

I think this binder should really be scanned for preservation!

Edited by 108 Stars, Fri Dec 3, 2010 12:13 PM.

[macsociety]

108 Stars, on Fri Dec 3, 2010 12:10 PM, said:

I think this binder should really be scanned for preservation!

I decided to put this up on eBay yesterday and I also posted a note here in the Atari Age marketplace forums that it is available for a Lynx nut to acquire. I enjoy the Lynx but I think this binder will better serve a Lynx nut that can do something with it. 8-)

tj

[remowilliams]

That's pretty neat and definitely something I would scan for the community, but I'm not going to bid against collectors for it though. :/

[mellis]

108 Stars, on Fri Dec 3, 2010 12:10 PM, said:

Imagine Microsoft having to buy Macs for Windows development.^^

Microsoft did buy a truckload of PowerMac G5s to use as the basis for the Xbox 360 development system during its early gestation. It was a convenient choice, because the Xbox 360's CPU is a POWER chip not too dissimilar from the PowerPC 970 in the G5.

[Shawn Jefferson]

I believe this is alread out there... it seems, from the Table of Contents, to be the exact same document that was on Bastian Schick's website.

http://www.monlynx.d...nx/lynxdoc.html