Lynx GameDrive Production PCB built up and tested. All looking good! Final bit of testing and these will start to go into production... finally! The website is being updated with product and distributor details as they come online. @AtariAge @DragonBoxShop

Disk related chips and passives populated. It now defaults to disc mode in basic!!! This means it has found the FDC. Just waiting on an IDC connector for the floppy drive now.

The 464Plus upgrade project continues! 64K RAM upgrade installed and tested. Now onto the floppy components!

The post today has been awesome! This looks beautiful...

And the winner is @NoMouthMustStrm!!

Drop me a DM and let me know your mailing address and I'll get your prize posted out to you.

(draw-ID: o7Sa0EEh) #Tweetdraw

New instruction leaflets arrived. These should be selling again shortly! Hurrah!

What game and character does this remind you of? First correct answer wins the prize of smugness.

About 2/3 of the through holes have been cleared ready for sockets! What a seriously tedious job. And I'm getting some stubborn solder, too. Going to break out the desolder station to give that a try on the rest!!

The RetroHQ lockdown challenge. Can I convert this CPC464+ into a CPC6128+ with HxC before the kids go back to school?

What's your lockdown challenge?

Any schematics will help with new cores for MiSTer, etc, so well worth having a hunt if you think you have any!

**COMPETITION TIME**

Drive away the isolation blues! Up for grabs is a RetroHQ Lynx GameDrive CLASSIC cartridge for the Lynx Mk II.

To enter...
1. Follow RetroHQ on Twitter
2. Retweet this post
3. Tag a friend

A winner will be announced on 23rd March 2020!

I like the geometric layout of this chip from a Soyuz space clock, so I wrote a blog post explaining how it works. Although the Soviet Union cloned many Western chips, this NAND gate chip has some creative features. The clock is full of surface-mount TTL.

The Pyra is a funky pocket sized PC device, for those who don't know about it!

Time to celebrate those who give to the community! It's amazing how much time and effort is put into these niche efforts. I salute you, sirs.

1/2: I wondered how feasible useful verlet simulation would be on the Jaguar GPU. I think, pretty possible. This is using 10.6 fixed point and some SIMD by having both X&Y packed into one register. Distance is via 16 section linear approximation.

Wow, that picture brings back memories! That was one of the first games I had on the Spectrum as well. May have even been the first...

Finally getting to doing Jaguar GD stuff again! Woo! I'm basically now waiting on things for the Lynx and NeoPocket GD's, so I've just laid up the programmer / tester device for the Jag GD. Things are moving ever closer. Albeit at a moderately fast snails pace...

Played this a lot as a kid. I’m pretty sure the cpu opponents cheated quite badly...

Very pretty game. It was one of the reasons I upgraded from a speccy to an ST.

Work progresses nicely on Gravitic Mines - Here's the "Heavy Explosive Training" level...

The final Lynx GameDrive cartridge shell. Really pleased with how this came out both from and aesthetic and functional standpoint!

Now, this would be very nice too see! The Reboot guys have done a great job with the Bitmap Brothers IP working with Mike Montgomery, so it’s not some random fan request. It will happen given the go-ahead!

Not a BGA in sight!! Gives that perfect retro look.

This keeps coming up. If you don’t support people who *create* the hardware, they will leave the scene. I know things can seem expensive, but seriously, when you have such small sales volume then margins do have to be high to cover R&D time and make the effort worthwhile.

Custom chips designed with a pencil...

We have it so easy these days with Verilog and FPGA’s costing just pounds each. Respin the chip in seconds! Crazy how much things have changed.

New blog post - How Banked ROM cartridges work. More info on the progression from humble beginnings with things like Commodore's Magic Desk 1 through to modern multicarts and the Marina64. Warning: Contains lots of schematics

Well, as we've slyly announced it (nothing official yet, not even a trailer!) have some footage of the next chapter of Dizzy to hit the Atari Jaguar, fully licensed and to be available from AtariAge (No ETA yet)

Magicland Dizzy!

I decided I wanted a Lynx GameDrive desktop wallpaper. As I've made it, I thought I may as well share it! I'm sure exactly zero people will want it, but hey, why not...

Full 1080p version available here --

You can never have too many bare bones examples for reasonably advanced (sprites 'n interrupts) techniques. The bedrock of old computers.

How cool are these #Nintendo #SNES #NES art pieces made by stevecasino@ on #instagram

And just for fun, a render of the most likely final shell candidate! All looks pretty nice, and fits in both Lynx 1&2 -- one of the design goals for this latest version of the cart.

A few more Lynx GameDrive case variants sent for print. One of these will be the final design, with any luck! Most of the tweaks are to do with how the PCB is clipped into the case. I'm trying to do away with adhesive and rely on mechanical fixing if at all possible.

And this is a Lynx GD testing unit ready for action! The production outsourcing tools.

Quite pleased with the case and funky yellow LCD. Looks suitably industrial.

Final production Lynx GameDrive PCB's ordered in gold ENIG finish for last bit of testing and then CE & FCC certification. Honestly, not long now...

It needs a housing, but this is the production Lynx GameDrive testing device. Stick in a blank cart and it does magic things...

Very cool. This is something schools should be doing, we have a real lack of bare bones low level knowledge of computers in the world. It just seems second nature to me to know about bits and bytes, but many "younger" professionals don't actually have a clue. This scares me!

I love @strangepartscom videos looking through the industrial and electronic markets in China. To me it's a like a sweet shop to a kid, absolutely amazing! We don't even have Maplin stores anymore.

Totally awesome.

The new Lynx GameDrive cart now supports EEPROM save game data!

This is a feature used in many homebrew games and a welcome addition to the GameDrive! EEPROM images are saved back to your memory card along with the game.

The thing I hate most about modern gaming by a huge huge mile

I’ve been wanting to build a tiny 68000 based computer for many years. No idea what I’d ever use it for, but that’s not the point... Building stuff just because you can is part of the fun!