Atari Lynx

The Atari Lynx is the first handheld system released by Atari; it was released in the autumn of 1989. The Lynx was initially released to aid the Atari XEGS with its console war with Nintendo's NES. Nintendo released its Game Boy system was released in early 1989, and Atari sought that the Atari Lynx would defeat the Game Boy. 
Though the Game Boy was released first, it was not capable of showing several colors, and thus, the Lynx holds the distinction of being the world's first handheld electronic game with a color LCD. The Lynx was also the first gaming console with hardware support for zooming/distortion of sprites.
The Lynx failed to achieve the sales numbers required to attract quality third party developers, and was eventually abandoned. In 1990, though, Atari released a final version of the Lynx, titled "Atari Lynx II." Though the name implies a new console, the Atari Lynx II was simply a redesign at a lower price of $99.99 USD.
== Technical specifications ==
* CPU: MOS 65SC02 processor running at up to 4 MHz (~3.6 MHz average)
** 8-bit CPU, 16-bit address space
** Sound engine
*** 4 channel sound (Lynx II with panning)
*** 8-bit DAC for each channel (4 channels × 8-bits/channel = 32 bits commonly quoted)
** Video DMA driver for liquid-crystal display
*** 4,096 color (12-bit) palette
*** 16 simultaneous colors (4 bits) from palette per scanline (more than 16 colors can be displayed by changing palettes after each scanline)
** 8 System timers (2 reserved for LCD timing, one for UART)
** Interrupt controller
** UART (for ComLynx) (fixed format 8E1, up to 62500 Bd)
** 512 bytes of bootstrap and game-card loading ROM
* Color: Suzy (16-bit custom CMOS chip running at 16 MHz)
** Graphics engine
*** Hardware drawing support
*** Unlimited number of high-speed sprites with collision detection
*** Hardware high-speed sprite scaling, distortion, and tilting effects
*** Hardware decoding of compressed sprite data
*** Hardware clipping and multi-directional scrolling
*** Variable frame rate (up to 75 frames/second)
*** 160 × 102 standard resolution (16,320 addressable pixels)
** Math co-processor
*** Hardware 16-bit × 16-bit → 32-bit multiply with optional accumulation; 32-bit ÷ 16-bit → 16-bit divide
*** Parallel processing of CPU and a single multiply or a divide instruction
* RAM: 64 KB 120ns DRAM
* Storage: Cartridge - 128, 256 and 512 KB exist, up to 2 MB is possible with bank-switching logic.
Some (homebrew) carts with EEPROM to save hi-scores.
* Ports:
** Headphone port (3.5 mm stereo; wired for mono on the original Lynx)
** ComLynx (multiple unit communications, serial)
* Screen: LCD Screen: 3.5" diagonal
* Battery life: Battery holder (six AA) ~4–5 hours (Lynx I) ~5–6 hours (Lynx II)
Category:Consoles released by Atari