Epyx development kit

The original games were made with the Epyx development kit and used additional hardware during the development phase. The development workstation was a Commodore Amiga 2000 with the Epyx development kit installed. The Amiga 2000 was connected to a special Atari Lynx, allowing the upload of games directly to the console from the workstation.

There were two sets of Atari Lynx hardware available. Both consisted of two devices that together represented or replaced the Atari Lynx. The older and more powerful combination of devices were named Howard and Howdy, named after Howard XYZ that designed and created them.

Howard and Howdy hardware

Howdy is an almost empty Atari Lynx console that had most of the internal electronics removed. The main parts of the Lynx are present in the large case called Howard, which has a lot of components representing the Lynx. Howard adds more capabilities, such as holding internal state for development and debugging purposes. Howard and Howdy are connected to each other with cables and interface with the Amiga computer.

Pinky and Mandy

The development hardware was later replaced with a leaner and less expensive version consisting of two parts called Pinky and Mandy. The Atari Lynx model 1 Mandy featured a cable connection from the cartridge slot and was connected to Pinky, a small motherboard inside an Atari modem case. Pinky included some logic on an EEPROM and RAM memory. It connected between the Mandy and Amiga computer and allowed games to be uploaded to Pinky that would mimic a cartridge. The implementation did not need the encryption on the cartridge, so developers were able to run unencrypted game binaries on real hardware.