17 replies to this topic

[liquid_sky]

Does anyone know if there were any Epyx Handys produced before Atari bought the rights and made the Lynx?

[Ze_ro]

My guess would be that Epyx hadn't got too far from the design phase before Atari bought it up... any prototypes might be just circuitry, if even.

However, considering the small amount of Lynx protos and stuff, I'd love to see this!

--Zero

[scottr]

Epyx produced two or three prototypes. I can't remember how many. I worked for Atari at the time and drove up to Epyx HQ in Foster City to pick up the machines and take them back to Atari. I remember there were at least two and no more than three, and that I was threatened pretty strongly about what would happen if I lost them. :)

I also wrote the original Lynx manual (yes, there was one) and probably 60 pecent or more of the game manuals. I think I might have done all of the comic book posters (the text and design, not the actual art work.)

[Songbird]

That's pretty cool! Got any other interesting stories to tell us about the early days of the Lynx? Any games you saw in development that never got published (Vindicators, Rolling Thunder, etc.)?

[scottr]

I don't really remember any games that were worked on and not released. I suspect that most of those were in the later days of the Lynx, when I was phasing out my contract work after I'd stopped working there full time. (As Atari neared its demise, it wasn't always easy to get paid on time, although they did their best). Also, the way things worked was that we usually didn't see the games to write about them until they were nearly done.

It was kind of cool, though, getting many of the games so early that they were just one or two chips that I'd plug into a special development Lynx we called the Pinky Mandy. (Where that name came from, I don't know.) It was basically a Lynx with a special circuit board hanging from it by a ribbon cable.

[Radfoo]

Sounds cool, do you still have any Lynx stuff? Do you have any un-released documentation?

[scottr]

I might still have something in a box somewhere, but I'm not sure. Probably no unreleased docs though.

I wish I still had my original Blue Lightning docs. I remember when I got that game. It had the usual "you're the greatest pilot ever" storyline. But I popped it in and thought, you know, when I first get a game like that, I pretty much suck. So, just for fun, I came up with the story about being the class clown and being expendable. John Skruch and others really liked it. It was so different from the usual story. Then my manager edited it down before it went to press, took most of the life out of it, and kid of upset a few people in the process. My approach to games changed after that and I got more daring, especially with humor. I remember having some fun with Rampage, with the character profiles in the 7800 BasketBrawl, coming up with a mythic story for Shanghai (like Mahjong really needed a story :) ). It was fun getting creative. Then the comic book posters started coming out, which were really fun to do.

Kind of took the fun out of it, though, when we started doing the little multi-language books with no room at all to play with words.

[Gregory DG]

scottr said:

I wish I still had my original Blue Lightning docs. I remember when I got that game. It had the usual "you're the greatest pilot ever" storyline. But I popped it in and thought, you know, when I first get a game like that, I pretty much suck. So, just for fun, I came up with the story about being the class clown and being expendable.

Ah! So you're the one that came up with that! You should read my Blue Lightning review since I mention that part of the manual.

http://www.ataritime...elightning.html

[scottr]

Yeah, that was me. The final manual lacks the humor and fun of the original text and ends up seeming like kind of a dumb concept. I went out on a limb on that, fully expecting to be asked to rein it in and go back to the usual kind of story, but several key people surprised me and said I should write more like that in the future.

[Radfoo]

If you still have the original text, I am sure people would be interested to read it!

[scottr]

I wish I had it. I don't have any of my old ST diskettes anymore.

[Songbird]

scottr said:

It was kind of cool, though, getting many of the games so early that they were just one or two chips that I'd plug into a special development Lynx we called the Pinky Mandy. (Where that name came from, I don't know.) It was basically a Lynx with a special circuit board hanging from it by a ribbon cable.

Yes, I have one of those in my collection, along with a fully functional Amiga 2000 / Handy developer setup. Although nowadays, running an Amiga emulator is much more efficient than firing up the real box...

[Radfoo]

Quote

Although nowadays, running an Amiga emulator is much more efficient than firing up the real box...

Does an Amiga emulator work with the developer software then? If so, do you know where this software could be obtained without the A2000?

I always assumed it needed a custom zorro card to work.

Radfoo

[Songbird]

The Amiga emu can be used to do some things like to run the assembler, and to run the Lynx encryption. Neither of these are required these days, however; most hobby developers are writing their own code using ported assemblers/compilers, and the so-called trojan horse encryption developed by Bastian many years ago.

The main reason I need the emu is because I'm working on games like CyberVirus and Ultravore that were developed with these tools, it's the easiest way to update/complete these games.

[Atari Joe]

Did you guys hear about centipede being released from video 61? it is going to be for sale on the lynx and it was made at atari and you can play it long ways like gauntlet. does anyone have a copy yet? - joe

[SwedenLynxer]

I could not find any information about Centipede on Video 61 homepage. Where did you hear about this?

[Godzilla]

ooo lynxipede??? where???

[Curt Vendel]

I see it in their first link, the site finally has a New Releases section so you can go right to all the new stuff they have, I see it listed in the Lynx Section...

Centipede. Cool!



Curt