Vital Statistics

The Atari Lynx was the world's first ever handheld colour video game system. It had a 3.5" colour backlit LCD screen capable of displaying 16 colours simultaneously from a large palette of 4096 colours. It had 2 fire buttons, 2 'option' buttons, a pause and power button and an 8-way directional pad. Originally conceived and designed by the games company, Epyx in 1987, they sold their design to Atari, realising they didn't have the finances to launch the product. Almost as soon as it was launched, Atari miscalculated demand for their new hand-held unit, and their fortunes turned bad when they missed the all-important Christmas shopping season due to shortages of stock. Sales were strong, however, and in the following year (1990), sales of the Lynx doubled.

Caught in a console war with the Nintendo Game Boy and NEC's TurboExpress, the Lynx battled through 1990, and in order to keep sales buoyant, in 1991 Atari dropped the price to just $149 for a package deal or $99 for the console alone (see the advertised comparison at the bottom). At the same time, they announced plans to release a smaller, lighter Lynx.

The original Lynx was criticised for having poor battery life (approx. 4 hours of playing time from Alkaline batteries, or 1.5 hours for Ni-Cd rechargeables). So Atari went to work again, and came up with the "Lynx II", released in July 1991 - a smaller, lighter unit which took less power to run (15% reduction), and the cartridge slot was made to fit the cartridges more easily.

All Lynx's had the capability of "linking up" via a communications interface called the ComLynx. This was a comms cable that enabled Lynx owners to connect up to 18 Lynx units together and play "Lynx up" games together.

By 1994, sales of the Nintendo's Game Boy had far outstripped the Lynx's, and Atari announced they would cease support of the Lynx, focussing their attention on new projects, including the forthcoming Atari Lynx.