FPGA Lynx

[tinctu]

I will do case design .

[Wookie]

anyone know of a connector part number I can order? It looked like a PCI slot or PCIe x16 slot might work by eyeball anyway.

edit: PCIe x16 is the only one wide enough for the cart, but it appears card thickness is a max of ~1.5 mm / 0.06 in from a scale drawing which wouldn't

be wide enough. It also appears that pitch is 0.8 mm / 0.03 in, not 1.4 mm. Bummer. This is all interpreted from a couple dimensions of a scale drawing and measured on screen to convert screen size to real size so theres a margin of error- any reason to think I'm wrong.

 

edit: s/foirly/fairly - preview preview. doh. p.s. have new dvorak

 

Did anybody ever find a part that would mate with the Lynx cart?

 

--Wookie

[Retro Rogue]

Just throwing two cents out here...

 

Have you considered talking to Atari, Inc? Perhaps they would give some kind of "help" in regards to pushing this as a "Flashback 3" sort of project. I love the idea of seeing a new Atari console on the market. I know the Flashback systems can be seen as "new consoles" but they were not really put out to do anything other than cash in on retro gaming.

 

Excuse me? What a load of crap. Curt didn't design the FB's as a way to "cash in on retro gaming". Rather to get new Atari hardware on the market. And management at Atari had to be dragged kicking and screaming in to it - you have no idea how many hoops had to be jumped through and continue to be jumped through to try and get the portable and actual FB3 on the market.

Edited December 9, 2009 by wgungfu

[AEX]

Just throwing two cents out here...

 

Have you considered talking to Atari, Inc? Perhaps they would give some kind of "help" in regards to pushing this as a "Flashback 3" sort of project. I love the idea of seeing a new Atari console on the market. I know the Flashback systems can be seen as "new consoles" but they were not really put out to do anything other than cash in on retro gaming.

 

Excuse me? What a load of crap. Curt didn't design the FB's as a way to "cash in on retro gaming". Rather to get new Atari hardware on the market. And management at Atari had to be dragged kicking and screaming in to it - you have no idea how many hoops had to be jumped through and continue to be jumped through to try and get the portable and actual FB3 on the market.

 

 

Steady on there Marty ,

 

I don't think the guy meant Curt was just lining his pockets with the money from unsuspecting retro geeks!, but that Atari saw the potential of retro consoles at that time. Everything comes back into style as a past generation sees the nostalgia of something from their childhood, and younger consumers get a chance to relive the times and products their parents talked about, the FB launched at such a time when Jakks etc, all saw the right market conditions.

 

Perhaps when the economies of the world begin to pick up again, Atari will manage to fund a new FB project and get fully behind the thing - I think the market is always ripe for these type of niche products, but you really need the parent company fully behind you to exploit the investment and get the right product to market, and not something half-baked which ruins consumer confidence for any future products.

 

I've never seen an FB in the flesh, but best of luck with the new FB's, I know we'd like to see them in Europe some day too!

 

Karl

[carmel_andrews]

Long time no see Karl...hows it going

 

Anyway, I do recall seeing something called an Atari flashback (box only) can't remember if it was no. 1 or no. 2 at a car boot sale ages ago

 

Not that I want to get neggy here but I really don't think infoatari have any love for atari's hardware rights/patents etc, hence why they ain't so interested in flashback's etc, if they had any interest in that area of the market they would have capitalized on it after buying atari from hasbro, if not directly then indirectly by licensing out the h/w patents and rights to third parties

 

There again I do recall hearing that just before Tramiel's Admin merged with JTS, there were rumours that Atari were trying to sell or license out various 'products' to other hardware or software companies (quite what was meant by 'products' is anyone's guess, but i guess it applied to both hardware and software lines)...I guess that is how Activision got hold of the home rights to space invaders and asteroids (and I guess that at the time, no one was interested in rejuvenating Atari's various h/w lines)

[AEX]

I'm grand, although we've just had another bruising national budget yesterday

 

I'm sure the Tramiels tried to off-load as much as they could before the eventual Hasbro sale! There is potential in the TV game systems, and those Jakks games are always on sale in this country, so they must be selling decent numbers.

 

I recall talking to one of our U.S. bigwigs at Gateway Corp. around '96 and they were discussing purchasing Amiga (like a lot of companies at the time), and he mentioned they had had some brief discussions with Atari. Gateway was really just sounding out what Atari had on the table and the annual royalties were only bringing in around $1.5 Million, Gateway were looking for intellectual properties at the time, especially anything that could be adapted to shave royalties off the PC systems it sold. The Amiga sale was similar and actually had properties that enabled a couple of Compaq (HP) royalties to be shelved due to some of the patents it had. When that deal was done, it was small change and nobody really knew what to do with it. Due to outside pressure and the range of items the Amiga sale brought, a small division was set-up to look more into the oppotunities, which eventually came to zilch (apart from a new OS). I had the Amiga system mock-up in my Marketing store-room right up until I left, wish I had taken it with me

 

Karl

[Retro Rogue]

Steady on there Marty ,

 

I don't think the guy meant Curt was just lining his pockets with the money from unsuspecting retro geeks!, but that Atari saw the potential of retro consoles at that time.

 

 

Karl, good to see you posting again.

 

I wasn't suggesting he was stating that. He made a comment about Atari Inc. as if it designed and released the FB and FB2, which suggested to me he had no idea it was Curt that designed them and was Curt who had to work hard to get Atari to release it. Hence my response correcting him on the origin of said consoles, and why Curt was never involved in a "cash in" scheme.

 

Atari Inc. saw squat in potential at the time, they were treating the retro properties as a red headed step child (no offense to you Irish) that they didn't know what to do with. Curt had to keep on them about getting some new hardware out, and used his involvement as an adviser on some of the other plug and plays to push the FB. He was given the go-ahead the last minute on the FB with no real time and told there would be no 2 if he didn't get the 1 out in their time constraints.

 

Perhaps when the economies of the world begin to pick up again, Atari will manage to fund a new FB project and get fully behind the thing - I think the market is always ripe for these type of niche products, but you really need the parent company fully behind you to exploit the investment and get the right product to market, and not something half-baked which ruins consumer confidence for any future products.

 

Perhaps. But in the same token, they're never fully behind anything until they continually "test waters". We have some great ideas in the pipeline that are being worked on, but first thing is first.

 

I've never seen an FB in the flesh, but best of luck with the new FB's, I know we'd like to see them in Europe some day too!

 

Karl

 

That wasn't our fault. Blame some management no longer with the company. That's all I can say.

[carmel_andrews]

I'm grand, although we've just had another bruising national budget yesterday

 

I'm sure the Tramiels tried to off-load as much as they could before the eventual Hasbro sale! There is potential in the TV game systems, and those Jakks games are always on sale in this country, so they must be selling decent numbers.

 

I recall talking to one of our U.S. bigwigs at Gateway Corp. around '96 and they were discussing purchasing Amiga (like a lot of companies at the time), and he mentioned they had had some brief discussions with Atari. Gateway was really just sounding out what Atari had on the table and the annual royalties were only bringing in around $1.5 Million, Gateway were looking for intellectual properties at the time, especially anything that could be adapted to shave royalties off the PC systems it sold. The Amiga sale was similar and actually had properties that enabled a couple of Compaq (HP) royalties to be shelved due to some of the patents it had. When that deal was done, it was small change and nobody really knew what to do with it. Due to outside pressure and the range of items the Amiga sale brought, a small division was set-up to look more into the oppotunities, which eventually came to zilch (apart from a new OS). I had the Amiga system mock-up in my Marketing store-room right up until I left, wish I had taken it with me

 

Karl

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shoot, I didn't realize that gateway are or where still going, I do recall that that had financial difficulties a few years back which is why they closed down their main London outlet nr Covent Garden (or was that their HQ/HO)

 

 

Anyway I haven't seen one of those tv game joystick things for a long time, I think the mainstream retail sector (computer/videogames) gave up on that market shortly after I saw the last one, which i think was at HMV's flagship store in Oxford Street (and that was a few years bk) I guess you'll only find those sort of things (like a flashback etc) at or in independent retailers or niche shops (mostly online i guess)

 

Just as well gateway didn't get their hands on the Atari properties, nothing personal but looking at what they did with the Amiga (namely doing away with the personality, i.e hardware and just keeping with the OS) After all, I am sure that Amiga lost a lot of users by Gateway going done that line, or as that initially did, just Stick in an amiga O/S on a pc and get something to emulate the hardware (like WinUAE code or something)

 

I guess Gateway's argument would be that to have kept with the Amiga hardware as well as the OS would not be economically or commercially viable due to the small number of users that would actually buy that system especially since that market had long since been dead with the demise of Atari and the orig. commodore company and that the market had shifted to the PC/mac etc

 

Anyway whilst the idea behind a 'lynx on a chip' device sounds good, you'd have to be looking at a price 'similar' to the last RRP of the original lynx per unit and be guaranteed sales in the 10's of thousands for the device to break even or make a small profit (remembering that you'd have to actually acquire the rights to reproducing an R/E version of the lynx hardware, plus the cost of actually designing/producing the lynx on a chip device (including cost of components and fabricating any custom or specialist chips/ICs) and that's before you have to advertise/market and promote the device)

 

What would be a better idea, if it were possible is something like a dingoo or gpx2/32x device but specifically for Atari systems simulation/emulation, sort of like an 'all in one' atari games systems and computer emulator on one system, you charge something in the region of 50-75/80 pound for the actual hardware, and say about 5-15 pound for each 'module' (i.e each emulated atari system is a 'module') which can be installed on the built in flashrom...Remember that the market for these 'hardware emulators' is dramactically fast moving away from single system emulations (you only need to see these websites that flog those knock off Asian/japanese consoles/handhelds to see that they are mostly selling now, multiple system hardware emulators)

Edited December 10, 2009 by carmel_andrews

[AEX]

Steady on there Marty ,

 

I don't think the guy meant Curt was just lining his pockets with the money from unsuspecting retro geeks!, but that Atari saw the potential of retro consoles at that time.

 

 

Karl, good to see you posting again.

 

I wasn't suggesting he was stating that. He made a comment about Atari Inc. as if it designed and released the FB and FB2, which suggested to me he had no idea it was Curt that designed them and was Curt who had to work hard to get Atari to release it. Hence my response correcting him on the origin of said consoles, and why Curt was never involved in a "cash in" scheme.

 

Atari Inc. saw squat in potential at the time, they were treating the retro properties as a red headed step child (no offense to you Irish) that they didn't know what to do with. Curt had to keep on them about getting some new hardware out, and used his involvement as an adviser on some of the other plug and plays to push the FB. He was given the go-ahead the last minute on the FB with no real time and told there would be no 2 if he didn't get the 1 out in their time constraints.

 

Perhaps when the economies of the world begin to pick up again, Atari will manage to fund a new FB project and get fully behind the thing - I think the market is always ripe for these type of niche products, but you really need the parent company fully behind you to exploit the investment and get the right product to market, and not something half-baked which ruins consumer confidence for any future products.

 

Perhaps. But in the same token, they're never fully behind anything until they continually "test waters". We have some great ideas in the pipeline that are being worked on, but first thing is first.

 

I've never seen an FB in the flesh, but best of luck with the new FB's, I know we'd like to see them in Europe some day too!

 

Karl

 

That wasn't our fault. Blame some management no longer with the company. That's all I can say.

 

 

Marty,

 

Yes, been busy recently, but always check by!

 

Curt's passion definately pushed the FB to its physical release, and its the passion of many Atari fans that see projects through - just look at some of the great products released here through AA. I remember the FB days and the hair-pulling time Curt and you guys had with the suits at Atari (although it pains me to call any of these rebranded content providers Atari), but at least some of the vision got to be realised with FB2.

 

I was thinking, if "Atari" took the Atari properties one step further and brought the experience to say XBLive etc, and without the obvisous real-world challenges for a second (funding, dev, etc) have something like the PS2 Activision Anthology where you enter your period-piece living room, select an Atari console (from VCS all the way to say Lynx or even Jag), pick a game from your library (which you can further build upon) and play your emulated game. Moving on from there, tie-in an FB3 or FB4 promotion and get the products into the stores and into the main-stream market place. The physical product could differ in many ways from the software version (other titles built-in, physical cartridge/joy/expansion slot etc). We can dream right

 

As for "red-headed" Irish people (and I am one of them, although I think its really more like "Auburn"!), we also have a shitty temper, so go easy on the analogies cowboy!

 

Keep up the good work Marty,

 

Karl

[Retro Rogue]

I was thinking, if "Atari" took the Atari properties one step further and brought the experience to say XBLive etc, and without the obvisous real-world challenges for a second (funding, dev, etc) have something like the PS2 Activision Anthology where you enter your period-piece living room, select an Atari console (from VCS all the way to say Lynx or even Jag), pick a game from your library (which you can further build upon) and play your emulated game. Moving on from there, tie-in an FB3 or FB4 promotion and get the products into the stores and into the main-stream market place. The physical product could differ in many ways from the software version (other titles built-in, physical cartridge/joy/expansion slot etc). We can dream right

 

Actually your dream almost happened and was crushed. We were tapped to do something almost exactly like that a year ago for Sony's Playstation Home. Full virtual arcade cabinets you could put in your virtual world, with the actual games running on them and playable. Got as far as the planning and getting ready to code stage, then overseas management put a stop to it. Apparently management at Atari Inc. vs. brand management in the UK had different ideas. Inc. wanted what they tapped us for, UK just wanted a piece of furniture - a cabinet that you could buy and throw in your room and look at.

 

Marty