It is believed to be as early as 1985 when the idea for the world's first colour handheld portable console came about. By 1987, engineers at Epyx, who conceived the idea, had named the system "Handy". Two of these engineers, Dave Needle and R.J. Mical, were also members of the original Amiga design team.
The new system was first shown to industry insiders at Winter CES in January 1989. After running into some financial problems, Epyx could not produce the system on their own and so they decided to enlist the help of another company. Invitations were sent to numerous companies in the hopes of getting a partnership to produce the system. One of these companies was Nintendo, who passed. Atari was also sent an invitation and, needing a way to re-enter the market, they accepted. An agreement was reached where Atari would produce and market the system while Epyx would take care of software development.
The system was again shown at CES, this time in the Summer of 1989, and with the name "Atari Portable Color Entertainment System", which was later changed to "Lynx". Also announced in the same year was the Nintendo GameBoy which would create tough competition for the Lynx, even though the Lynx was more powerful and had a backlit colour screen. The GameBoy only had a black & white screen, however, it was lighter, smaller and used less battery power. But probably the main edge that the GameBoy had over the Lynx was the price. The GameBoy was announced at a price of US$109 while the Lynx was US$90 more at US$199. Both systems were released by the end of the year, in time for Christmas. Due to the larger quantities of GameBoy consoles produced, the system was more readily available, while the Lynx only had limited quantities and often sold out, meaning Atari lost many potential customers. As a result, the GameBoy became the more popular choice over the holiday season.
The above snippet of information was written by Console Database
Q:Download program seems buggy and does not download
A: Please make sure that any security software such as your firewall allow the File Downloader to have internet access. If in doubt, try temporarily disabling your firewall.
Q:What operating systems does your download engine support?
A: As long you have Sun's Java Machine it should work on all operating systems. I have personally tested the downloader on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh.
A: You must find a game in the games list. Then navigate to the top of the page and select the letter that corresponds to the game. Example: You want Asteriods Hyper 64 in the N64 games list. You will find it under the 'A' Section. Scroll to the top of the page where all the letters of the alphabet are listed. Click on the letter 'A'. Find the Asteroid Hyper 64 game (with information listed beside it) and click on the game name to download.
Q:Is the file corrupt? I can't open it in my emulator
A: If you have Winzip or any other decompression program, try opening the file. If the file can extract than the rom is fine. It may be the emulator problem. Often, the emulator should be able to open Zip files. If, however, you get en error message stating that it is an unknown format or damaged, please make sure to let us know.
Q:Why are you using a program as your download engine?
A: Although providing users the ability to download files using the engine provided by the browser would be simplest (and easiest) method, we simply cannot allow it. The reason for this is due to the high volumes of users that put unnecessary strain on our servers due to download accelerators.
Q:I am having difficulties running [Game Name]. Where can I get help?
A:
Make sure you have the newest emulator for the game. Our site always has the newest emulators so if the game still doesn't work then you will have to wait until the authors of the emulator release a new version.
Try talking to other members in the forum. I'm sure someone will be able to provide some help. Usually it is the config file.
