Atari Lynx Cartridge Pinout | Atari Lynx Vault

The Atari Lynx supports cartridge sizes of 129K, 256K, 512K and 1Mb (bank switched). The Lynx cannot address data on the cartridge directly and instead uses two counters to read data. The first counter is for the block number (0 - 255), the second counter is for the position within the block (0 - 4095, depending on cartridge size). Your code must know the exact block size used on a cartridge to be able to read data from it.

Physical Characteristics

Pin pitch: 1.59mm

Pinout Diagram

Below is the pinout for a typical Atari Lynx Cartridge.

Pins and Functions

1 — GND
2 — D3
3 — D2
4 — D4
5 — D1
6 — D5
7 — D0
8 — D6
9 — D7
10 — CARD/OE
11 — A1
12 — A2

13 — A3
14 — A6
15 — A4
16 — A5
17 — A0
18 — A7
19 — A16
20 — A17
21 — A18
22 — A19
23 — A15
24 — A14

25 — A13
26 — A12
27 — SWCON/WE
28 — A8
29 — A9
30 — A10
31 — Vcc
32 — AUDIOIN digital I/O for 1M cards
33 — Vcc
34 — SWVCC

Additional Information

Pins A12 - A19 are connected to the 74HC164 to select the block.
Pins A0 - A10 are connected to the 4040 to select the position within the block.
Pin A11 is missing.
The Card/OE pin is strobed on reads.
The Swcon/WE pin is strobed on writes.

Original information retrieved from RetroIsle.

Battery and SWVCC

SWVCC is an unregulated 5V supply as compared to VCC. This can be taken advantage of to measure the voltage level in the battery if a custom cart was made. The voltage on SWVCC would be Vbatt-5V-0.6V. Note that even when the Lynx is off, there is a small voltage present on both SWVCC and VCC pins at the cart connector.

Changed

21st September 2023