Igor Posted May 1, 2019 Share Posted May 1, 2019 I've been maintaining a database of all Atari Lynx games over at Atari Gamer. It's the most up-to-date database of Lynx titles and is constantly being improved and added to. You can find it over here: https://atarigamer.com/lynx/games You can also 'explore' various official and homebrew games using a different style interface over here - https://atarigamer.com/explore The aim is to document all of the various homebrews, prototypes, demos, mini-games, official games, utility cartridges, etc. I've had several suggestions on improvements, but I'm happy to hear more and if there's anything missing I'd love to hear about it so I can add it to the database. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted May 1, 2019 Share Posted May 1, 2019 (edited) I'll start off with my list of "rotated" games... Flappy Bird - Left Gauntlet: The Third Encounter - Left KLAX - Left Centipede - Right Lexis - Right NFL Football - Right Raiden - Right In your database, but not mine, I think Command: Starship is also rotated. Edited May 1, 2019 by bhall408 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted May 1, 2019 Share Posted May 1, 2019 Here is my list of games I have observed to make use of stereo (panning) Battle Wheels Cyber Virus Cyber Virus: CinciClassic Edition Dirty Larry: Renegade Cop KLAX Lemmings Lynx Diagnostic Ponx Remnant RoadBlasters Robo-Squash Robotron: 2084 SFX Xenophobe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted May 1, 2019 Share Posted May 1, 2019 For errata, I had gotten to the end of the "G"s so far, and found Dama: Database says no comlynx, but box shot indicated is supports 1-2 Guardians: Storm over Doria -- looks like it supports 1-4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 2, 2019 Author Share Posted May 2, 2019 Thanks. I'm not storing the direction of rotation, just that the game is 'vertical', but since none of the entries in the database have that filled in, I can change the data type easily enough and store the direction of rotation too. Thanks for the rest of the data points. How do you see the stereo/rotation being used? Is it something that should be searchable or is it enough to just display it on the game information pages? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael David Morsette Posted May 2, 2019 Share Posted May 2, 2019 Very nice! I attempted a project like this a number of years ago but.... let's just I lost steam. The skeletal remnants haunt Atariage to this day lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry_Dodgson Posted May 2, 2019 Share Posted May 2, 2019 Forgot my LGSS cartridge :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted May 2, 2019 Share Posted May 2, 2019 Thanks. I'm not storing the direction of rotation, just that the game is 'vertical', but since none of the entries in the database have that filled in, I can change the data type easily enough and store the direction of rotation too. Thanks for the rest of the data points. How do you see the stereo/rotation being used? Is it something that should be searchable or is it enough to just display it on the game information pages? Rotation I'm tracking it because it is needed for emulation... It isn't enough to know that it is rotated at all, you need to know which direction you are meant to rotate. It is a field in the LNX file format. Unfortunately there are games that leave the flag at the default (off) even when they need rotation, and there was at least one that had it set the opposite of what it was meant to be set. Stereo I initially was tracking this as I was working on stereo support and needed to find titles to test with. I'm now interested in tracking it in order to enable simulated stereo for titles that didn't take advantage of it. I do most of my playing either on mobile devices with wireless headphones (only down side being the latency you get doing BT audio, but I put up with it), or on TV with a nice sound system. LNX Format I've pondered creating a v2 of the LNX file format... Perhaps add support for XML or JSON for the meta-data which would then be extensible... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted May 2, 2019 Share Posted May 2, 2019 More on LNX file format... There is a great Mac tool called Synalyze Pro for which you can create your own "grammars" of structures and file formats. I've been using to view/edit/fix existing LNX files. It supports user contributed grammars, so I uploaded my LNX grammar to their database. (It is also a full blown GUI hex file editor, so you can do edits by hand if you don't have the grammar) You can find the app here: https://www.synalysis.net There is an issue in that it isn't clear to me if the app name and developer name fields are meant to be fixed width *and* null terminated, or just fixed width and null padded. I have seen at least one LNX file that had a 16 byte name in the 16 byte field, but the format says it is meant to be ASCIIZ, which is c-string style null terminated. From the emulator side, you just code up defensively and manually null pad it into a 17 byte c-string if you see that, but it would be nice to know what the intent was from whomever did the format. Which is another reason to update the format -- you want to be able to support longer names, unicode names (for example, Japanese/Korean/etc titles), etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 2, 2019 Author Share Posted May 2, 2019 With my programmer board software changes I am assuming that the strings are null padded up to the length of the field. If you do end up defining a new header format I can try to add its support. Maybe a better way of doing it is defining a separate metadata file for a ROM, so the LNX format stays the same - you could reference the metadata file from the manufacturer field in the LNX format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 2, 2019 Author Share Posted May 2, 2019 Very nice! I attempted a project like this a number of years ago but.... let's just I lost steam. The skeletal remnants haunt Atariage to this day lol Thanks, I made use of that to help fill out some of the details, so you've been a great help and didn't know it Forgot my LGSS cartridge :-) Ah yes, I've been trying to track down a copy but haven't been successful so far. Karri has the sources so I can try and build it and see if it works with Othello. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael David Morsette Posted May 3, 2019 Share Posted May 3, 2019 Awesome I'm glad my little project got some use ?? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 5, 2019 Author Share Posted May 5, 2019 Updated the stereo and rotation that's been provided so far. This is shown on the game information page, but not searchable e.g. for Klax - https://atarigamer.com/lynx/game/KLAX/1284965295 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 Another field perhaps? EEPROM/Saved State/Saved Game support? ...Just started looking at EEPROM support At the least, I'd like to know a few just for myself for testing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 6, 2019 Author Share Posted May 6, 2019 That's a good suggestion, I was thinking of adding that as well. Most of the games wouldn't have this, but a few will, some like Xump support both SD cart and EEPROM saves too. If you can get me a list of what games have support for it, I'll add that to the database. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzoff2000 Posted May 6, 2019 Share Posted May 6, 2019 Is there a section on games that we know were planned but never saw the light of day? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted May 6, 2019 Share Posted May 6, 2019 Just out of my memory. 128 byte eeproms are in use in Alpine Games Mega Pak I Flappy bird testing Wyvern Tales Reiko's Robot Run (on Always winter, never Christmas cart) Sylvester (On Shaken, not stirred cart) 16k nvram is in use only in EOTB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thefred Posted May 6, 2019 Share Posted May 6, 2019 One on my t-tris saves the state when you pause it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 7, 2019 Author Share Posted May 7, 2019 Is there a section on games that we know were planned but never saw the light of day? I've planned to add a section like that but haven't so far. You can use the advanced search options to find them though - https://atarigamer.com/lynx/games?z=1&s=releases&o=99 Thanks Karri, thefred, I'll add this to the database too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 12, 2019 Author Share Posted May 12, 2019 I've added two fields - Lynx SD support and EEPROM size. The games mentioned in this thread so far have been updated. I've also updated Xump since that supports both the SD and 128b EEPROM (even though it's not released on cart yet). Screenshot is for Alpine Games (https://atarigamer.com/lynx/game/AlpineGamesLuchsSoft/613259437) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted May 12, 2019 Share Posted May 12, 2019 Could you either make it searchable, or post a list view of what you currently have for titles with known values for SD/EEPROM? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted May 12, 2019 Author Share Posted May 12, 2019 (edited) Searchable should be doable, I will see if I have time to add that this week. There isn't much data of this kind right now though. Edited May 12, 2019 by necrocia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted June 3, 2019 Author Share Posted June 3, 2019 Could you either make it searchable, or post a list view of what you currently have for titles with known values for SD/EEPROM? Sorry for the delay, lots of things got in the way. I've not forgotten about this though! Will try and have it done soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted June 4, 2019 Author Share Posted June 4, 2019 Meanwhile I added a small feature that shows all entries that were added as variants with a curly symbol next to their names... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted June 5, 2019 Author Share Posted June 5, 2019 Could you either make it searchable, or post a list view of what you currently have for titles with known values for SD/EEPROM? EEPROM sizes field is now searchable. You'll probably have to force reload data from the server first (bottom of the listing). Do you think there's much value in making the Lynx SD support field searchable too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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