Welcome to the Handy Homepage

Latest Handy version is 0.90 - UPDATE 14/03/2004.

NEWS

14th April '04: No new release I'm afraid, but rather a change of home (again!). Handy is now hosted at Sourceforge so update those bookmarks! The old Handy page at www.esplexo.co.uk will vanish soon.

But rather more important news is that Handy is now Open Source. This means that that the source is available to anyone who wants it, to customise, improve or port to other platforms. The source is available from CVS or as a zip file from the downloads page.

14th June'02: Well here we are, a new release of Handy V0.90. A huge number of changes within the developer version that most of you wont see, scripting, debug message output within code, full command line debugger.

Within the core program the following changes have been made to improve the image rendering, ZIP support has been added for all file types, there's a new snapshot format (old one still works) that doesn't contain the cartridge or boot ROM so you can now share those save games without fear. A number of other less important bugs have been fixed, including one that would allow the window to be drawn off screen.

Make your way to the DOWNLOAD page now......

Thanks to Bastian Schick for the demo program to allow me to verify the counter/HBL/VBL alignments.

2nd May'02: The new debugger is finished, ZIP support has been added for all those people who persistently asked for it. There is a new save game format (LSS3) that doesn't save out the system ROM or cartridge ROM so you can freely exchange/publish save games, Handy will still load your old LSS2 format save game files. When I track down the frame handling bug that is still eluding me then the new version will be released.

8th Febuary'02: Time for the annual Handy web page update. For the people that ask, no Handy is not dead but I get very little time to work on it mainly due to family/work commitments. There is a new version in the works when I track down the last bug in the new frame handling code. This will allow the true colour demos to work correctly under Handy. Its has a better debugger with some useful features like allowing memory editing & register modification

For those people still linking to the old demon.co.uk address please move your links over www.esplexo.co.uk as this has a redirector that allows me to move ISP without you having to change your bookmark, the demon.co.uk page will be removed soon.

20th January'01: Wow does time pass quickly or what. Here's a minor update to Handy to fix a couple of minor bugs in the UI & Game engine. Thanks to Gareth Stewart Handy now supports 3 new lynx backgrounds (LynxI/LynxII & Screen surround) that are selectable from the options menu. The new release is available on the downloads page. You can now drag & drop cartridges into the program window to load them.

Netlynx has been improved a little and now works with Championship Rally but it doesn't want to work with commercial games and I've still not spent much time looking at it. As usual its a case of too many projects and not enough time, I'm still working on Handy and will continue to do so in the background.

12th July'00: Here is V0.80, lots of improvements in the graphics area, two new modes added (LynxLCD & Eagle) and a couple of changes in the core code. The new GFX code supports frame skipping for those with slower machines. No NetLynx for this release I'm afraid, the core NetLynx code needs to be rewritten to stand a chance of working (moved to Client/Server type) and there is just not time for this release.

"Handy" is an Atari Lynx Emulator for Windows 95/98/NT/2000. Handy was the original name of the Lynx project that was started at Epyx and then finished by Atari.

Dave Needle: "I was at Apple, fed up with the brainless product management process and was ready to quit. RJ Mical was completing a game (I dont remember which) and was looking to do something else. We happened to be talking to our ex-boss (and still friend) David Morse (the founder, president, and leader of Amiga) and he suggested that we get together to talk about it.

Soon after, on a warm and sunny afternoon, at an outdoor table of a waterside Foster City seafood restaurant (Its gone now), David Morse said "My son wants to know if we can build a portable hand-held game?" and that was the start of "Handy" At that table, RJ and I sketched out an architecture, David discussed some business structures, and then we went off to "Just do it".

While RJ and I refined the product concept, David set up the corporate environment and acquired funding (no small feat). We joined Epyx, with David as our fearless leader and Handy as a hot product idea.

The actual hardware and software development was done by our teams of many dedicated, hardworking, creative engineers and artists. The company and project management was headed by David Morse. Almost always, his name is left out of the story. It was and is always a three pronged team, Management, Software, Hardware. All 3 are needed to create, start and complete the task."

My deep respect goes out to the three guys who conceived the Lynx (Dave Needle, RJ Mical & David Morse) for designing/building a superb piece of kit, its a shame Atari wasn't up to the challenge of marketing the product.

Currently Handy is available for Windows95/98/NT/2000/XP/Macintosh/Linux/AmigaPPC/Acorn.

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This page was last updated on 14-Apr-2004.