Atari Lynx emulators

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Atari Lynx
Atari-Lynx-I-Handheld.png
Developer Atari, Epyx
Type Handheld game console
Generation Fourth generation
Release date 1989
Discontinued 1995
Emulated

The Atari Lynx was a fourth-generation handheld game console released by Atari on September 1, 1989 and it retailed for US$179.99 (equivalent to $442.33 in 2024). It has a WDC 65SC02 CPU. Notably, it was the world's first handheld system that used a color LCD screen, as well as having fairly advanced graphics for the time.

Unlike contemporaneous machines, its architecture is based upon a frame buffer and a scaling blitter, providing both 2D sprite and background scaling and hardware support for lines and filled triangles. Because it has no inherent concept of a tile map or any sprite-specific hardware, the drawing budget is per frame rather than per line; there is no enforced limit in terms of the number of sprites or sprites per line other than that implied by the amount of drawing that can be achieved within an acceptable frame rate.

Emulators[edit]

Name Platform(s) Latest version Netplay Comlynx Retro
Achievements
libretro License Active Recommended
PC / x86
Mednafen
mednafen_lynx_libretro
Windows Linux macOS FreeBSD 1.32.1
libretro core
~[N 1] ~[N 1] GPLv2 (Copyleft)
MAME Windows Linux macOS FreeBSD 0.272 GPLv2
BSD-3-Clause
Felix Windows 0.6.3 MIT (Permissive)
OpenEmu macOS 2.4.1 ?
Handy
Handy_libretro
Windows Linux macOS libretro core
0.971
~[N 1] ~[N 1] zlib License (Permissive) ~[N 2]
Mobile / ARM
Handy_libretro Android iOS libretro core zlib License (Permissive) ~
Lynx.emu Android 1.5.77git GPLv3 (Copyleft)
Consoles
Handy
Handy_libretro
Xbox One Xbox Series X/S Wii Nintendo 3DS [N 3]
PSP
Vita
Saturn
GCWZero
libretro core
Handypsp
Handy VITA
WiiHandy
Handy-3DS
06/03/23 Saturn
git
~[N 1] ~[N 1] zlib License (Permissive) ~
PLynx PSP 0.9 Proprietary ~
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Only with RetroArch version.
  2. Libretro core is still active.
  3. RetroArch compatible platforms.

Comparison[edit]

Mednafen
Based upon Handy, but unlike other forked cores, its emulation only improves upon the original. Despite having the .lnx extension, No-Intro ROMs aren’t directly compatible with Mednafen nor Handy and must be converted with make_lnx, which is bundled with Handy.
Felix
Inspired by Handy. Created in C++20 using DirectX. Under MIT License. It's a cycle exact Atari Lynx Emulator with good compatibility. It has a simple GUI and can load roms in .lnx, .lyx and .o format, change rotation and EEPROM properties, has Xinput Gamepad support and redefinable key mapping.
Handy
Hasn't been updated since 2007. Only included here for reference.

BIOS[edit]

All emulators require a dump of the 512-byte BIOS named lynxboot.img. On Mednafen, put it on the root folder.

LLeny made HLE BIOS for Handy's libretro core, it can run Lynx games directly

Atari logo.png
Consoles: Atari 2600Atari 5200Atari 7800Atari XEGSAtari JaguarAtari VCS
Handhelds: Atari Lynx
Computers: Atari 8-bitAtari ST