MD/Lynx

Microfirmware for the SidecarTridge Multi-device by Neil Rackett

Introduction

MD/Lynx turns your Atari ST into an Atari Lynx, powered by your SidecarTridge Multi-device!

The Lynx and the ST both show 16 colours at once, so the Lynx palette goes straight to the ST shifter — nothing is quantised, and on an STE you get all 4,096 Lynx colours. The 160x102 Lynx screen is doubled to 320x204 with the top and bottom scanlines cropped, so it fills the ST display exactly.

Sound comes out of the STE's DMA chip at 25 kHz where the machine has it, and falls back to the YM2149 on a plain ST. It's detected at boot, there's nothing to set up.

Any cartridge image in .lnx, .lyx, .o or .bin format can be played using the Atari ST keyboard, a joystick, or a modern gamepad via Xpad, just drop them into the /lynx folder of your SD card and they'll appear on the menu. No Lynx BIOS ROM is needed. There's a growing library of homebrew titles at AtariAge to get you started; commercial titles you'll need to dump from your own cartridges, although you may be able to find ready made backups in the Internet Archive. (Games flagged as rotated, like Gauntlet — The Third Encounter, play upright rather than sideways.)

Ported from K. Wilkins' Handy, via xrip's pico-lynx, so a massive thank you to both of them for their fantastic work!

Controls

The Lynx pad is four directions plus A, B, Option 1, Option 2
and Pause. The ST cursor cluster and a joystick in port 1 both drive the
d-pad, and the two fire buttons sit under the keys nearest the cursors.

Context	Key	Action
Play	↑ ↓ ← →	D-pad
	Alternate / Space / Insert	Button A
	Control / Shift / Clr Home	Button B
	F1 / F2	Option 1 / Option 2
	F3 or P	Pause
	Esc	Open the menu
Menu	↑ ↓	Choose a cartridge or setting
	← →	Change the selected setting
	Return / Space / Insert / Clr Home	Select
	Esc	Close the menu

Pause is on F3 as well as P, because several titles want it held together with an Option button — screen flip for left-handed play being the familiar one — and F1/F2/F3 fall under one hand where F1+P doesn't.

A real ST joystick works in port 1, in both play and the menu — the stick is the d-pad and fire is Button A. It's only one button, though, so Option 1, Option 2 and Pause stay on the keyboard.

Installation

You can install MD/Lynx from the SidecarTridge Multi-device store, or add it manually:

1. Download the latest .uf2 and .json below.
2. Copy both files to the /apps folder of your SidecarT's microSD card.
3. Copy your Lynx cartridge images into a /lynx folder on the same microSD card.
4. On the Booster screen, press ESC for the app list and select MD/Lynx.
5. To return to Booster, power on your ST while holding the SELECT button on your SidecarT.