Editing Atari Lynx (section)

== Architecture and Processors ==

The Lynx uses two custom 16 MHz VLSI CMOS chips, known as '''"Mikey"''' and '''"Suzy"''', which together handle all processing, graphics, sound, and I/O functions.

=== Mikey ===

The Mikey chip contains:
* A '''WDC 65SC02''' 8-bit CPU running at up to '''4 MHz''' (approximately 3.6 MHz average), a variant of the MOS 6502<ref>{{cite web |url=https://atarilynxvault.com/pages/atari-lynx |title=Atari Lynx Specifications – Processors |publisher=Atari Lynx Vault |access-date=2026-03-30}}</ref>
* '''4-channel sound engine''' with 8-bit DAC per channel, capable of both DAC and PSG (pulse/noise via LFSR taps) output
* '''Video DMA driver''' for the LCD
* '''8 system timers''' (two reserved for LCD timing, one for UART)
* '''Interrupt controller'''
* '''UART''' for Comlynx networking (8E1 format, up to 62,500 baud; turbo mode up to 1,000,000 baud)

=== Suzy ===

The Suzy chip is a 16-bit custom blitter and maths co-processor providing:
* '''Unlimited blitter sprites''' with collision detection (practically limited to around 128)
* '''Hardware sprite scaling, distortion, and tilting'''
* '''Hardware decompression''' of compressed sprite data
* '''Hardware clipping and multi-directional scrolling'''
* '''Maths engine''': 16 × 16 → 32-bit multiply with optional accumulation; 32 ÷ 16 → 16-bit divide
* '''Parallel processing''' alongside the CPU

The Lynx was the first gaming console with hardware support for sprite zooming and distortion. Dave Needle's technique of using stretched triangles instead of full polygons enabled fast pseudo-3D rendering on the handheld hardware.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx |title=Atari Lynx – Technical specifications |publisher=Wikipedia |access-date=2026-03-30}}</ref>