psychicall lynx lcd dimension

[GadgetUK]

Yeah, me too! I can imagine how crisp the image could be on a new LCD from when ive been playing Lynx ganes on my GP2X =)

[+DarkLord]

Know its early, but put me on the pre-order list.

[+karri]

Having a LED backlight would reduce power a lot. Perhaps changing the caps and replacing the power supply by a modern chip would be good too...

[jmetal88]

I'd definitely be interested in a new Lynx LCD. Not only would improved clarity be extremely desirable, but that would also give me a foolproof way to get rid of my dead pixel!

[candle]

i've received lynx ii in the mail today - after trying to play batman returns for few minutes i'm speechless

how one could ever advertise it as COLOR LCD?

COLORIS at its best, and completly unreadable

vertical ghosting after light to dark transitions in upper part of the picture are normal?

 

good thing: its enormously hughe, so modern lcd module, including all glue logic and tv out can be easly fitted to place where original screen was, picture will be slighty smaller though (5mm smaller, so 75x48 will be 70x43)

[108 Stars]

Well, it is horrible by today's standards, but it still beat the GameBoy and GameGear. You must never forget it was one of the very first color LCDs ever.^^

 

That said, I can play with it; and read text too. But it is true that the brightness adjustment basically only leaves a small area of visibility, when you turn the wheel much in either direction you can forget it. And it all seems very bright, maybe the backlight is too strong and washes out the colors or something.

 

A better LCD would be very welcome; eventhough I can play with the old one, I fear that the screens will go bad of old age eventually, and there must be a way of replacement so Lynxes are not rendered useless soon.

[candle]

i never had a lynx before, so this is where i stand, don't get me wrong here - i'm just a kido with new toy which is very old in fact and i'm expecting to see what i know as "color lcd" - and this is at worst nokia 3510i screen

 

anyways, i'm working on it, maybe tomorrow i'll have some display on RGB output

[108 Stars]

I absolutely understand, I played Lynx the first time three years ago, and it is quite a hit in the face when you are used to modern stuff.^^

Just saying you can get used to it if you always tell yourself it was one of the very first ever.^^

Edited September 10, 2012 by 108 Stars

[Michael David Morsette]

I don't know if there is anything to this or if my eyes play tricks on me, but I seem to have a better picture on my Lynx I than I have on the II. I have read that the Lynx II was supposed to have a "sharper" screen. Maybe making it "sharper" made it darker and less vibrant too.

[+karri]

Nokia 3510i was made 10 years ago. The Lynx more than 20 years ago.

 

C'mon guys. The Lynx LCD works better than the PSP screen outside in bright sunlight. That is if you cut away the plastic lens.

 

Inside its another story. The Lynx has no black at all. Only hues of grey.

 

I am very excited to see if you really get some glue logic to work between the old Lynx chips and a modern LCD screen. I wish you good luck.

 

--

Karri

[candle]

seems like screen is organised as 3 individual screens rather than single one (it doesn't split on RGB pixels, even not on R, G, B planes, istead per 160 RAW pixels, don't mind the color), each clock line is active only for 1/3 of horizontal raster time

as a proof i've removed one clock pair (CLK1) and that disabled first 1/3 of the screen area

[TailChao]

I have been doing research on this same thing, I'm glad someone else is doing it as well

 

seems like screen is organised as 3 individual screens rather than single one (it doesn't split on RGB pixels, even not on R, G, B planes, istead per 160 RAW pixels, don't mind the color), each clock line is active only for 1/3 of horizontal raster time

as a proof i've removed one clock pair (CLK1) and that disabled first 1/3 of the screen area

Yes, this is actually why some units end up with different brightness levels among the three 160-pixel segments in the screen when the ribbon goes bad. The design is so bizarre.

 

Since the LCD can have variable refresh rates, it's best to just triple buffer the entire 160x102x12bpp in some external RAMs and then switch between them when one frame has finished drawing. So then there's no need to worry about color changes on a scanline and 50/60/70Hz refreshes. Everything can just be dumped out at 60Hz.

 

C'mon guys. The Lynx LCD works better than the PSP screen outside in bright sunlight. That is if you cut away the plastic lens.

 

Inside its another story. The Lynx has no black at all. Only hues of grey.

They blur about the same as well

The low contrast makes color choices for good visibility quite stressful too.

[candle]

triple buffering will add a lag, which might be not desirable, and impact game playability

but this might be subjective, or even only in my head

 

getting all-for-all 60hz rgb output would be nice, but additional logic that would make it tick will be quite enormous

i'm going to keep it simple, at least in initial version

 

could someone provide background data on games and their frame rate? if there are only games that run >=60hz then we can have simple VGA out without going into much details like triple buffering

[+karri]

The Lynx can only have three refresh rates 50Hz, 60Hz or 75Hz.

 

All "modern" games will run at 75Hz as there is really no point in using the lower rates. Most of the time the Lynx shows identical content for many frames. The real fps is usually 75Hz divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ... depending on how much data the Lynx has to draw. I have not seen many games with higher refresh rates than 8 fps or so.

Edited September 10, 2012 by karri

[candle]

if that would be A8 game running at 8FPS then it would be mostly unplayable at all

25fps is ok, 12.5fps is berable, but lower than this - no

 

anyways, p1-p3 are important only for this particular LCD screen as they are responsible for shades, but don't carry any color information in them

basically it looks like 4 bit counter running at 128khz

[+remowilliams]

A new LCD for the Lynx would be awesome... I modded my Nomad with one, and the difference is stunning.

[candle]

CL2 is for line counter, RESET makes VSYNC, this is about all that is required to get lcd/tv out working

[LX.NET]

Quick comment to let you guys know this is awesome stuff. Please continue!

[GadgetUK]

I am blown away by how much understanding you have already. You are clearly an expert in electronics! If you want a Lynx 2 at any point, just give me a shout and I will donate one of mine.

[candle]

i could use programable cart - any programable cart, even simplest one

 

so far i have FPGA pixel clock recovered, and vertical resolution displayed correctly, but horizontal one is giving me a headache

and i really should be sleeping

[jmetal88]

You're doing an awesome job man! That's much faster than I would have been able to pick it up, if I wanted to try. Get as much sleep as you need, dude!

[candle]

i think i figured that out - it actually uses both clock edges, that would explain readouts of 79, 81, and 81 transitions on CLK1, 2 and 3

if you add other edge to it, it will be 79+81, 81+79 and 81+79 making total of 480 dots (160*3)

[108 Stars]

Your progress is impressive, with all up to this point I have read from people being that it would be almost impossible to do a Lynx replacement screen without all the official schematics etc.

[Shawn Jefferson]

haha, I don't think Candle knows the meaning of the word.

[candle]

in another galaxy, far far away...

 

 

and general setup (MESS)...