The Lynx was an 8-bit British home computer that was first released in early 1983 as a 48 kB model. The machine was also available with more memory: 96kB or 128kB and could be expanded to a total of 192kB of RAM using the on board RAM expansion slots.

The computer uses a Z80A CPU running at 4MHz or 6MHz for the 128kB+ models. It used a Motorola 6845 microcontroller for video display generation. The machine came with the built in Lynx OS operating system, but it was possible to run CP/M using the optional 5.25" Floppy Disk Drive.

Due to its high price-point the machine did not compete well with other computers on the market such as the Spectrum, Commodore and Atari. Camputers tried rebranding the machines and assigned different names to the computers based on their RAM size. The 48kB Lynx became the Leisure and the 128kB machine became the Laureate.

Despite this, only an estimated 30,000 machines were sold. Anston Technology bought Camputers in 1984 with plans to re-launch the computer line, but this did not materialize. Eventually Anston sold all the rights to the National Lynx User Group. This group kept the Lynx alive for a while, but was so busy providing maintenance to the existing user base that any new development planned for the Lynx was cancelled.

The Lynx BASIC has some unique properties, notable the fact that all numbers are floating point numbers, even line numbers. There was no text mode, text was displayed as 6x10 pixel characters in the 256x252 graphics mode in 8 colors. The graphics architecture was slow, with graphic updates only possible during a horizontal sync. This only allowed small amounts of graphics memory to be manipulated at a time, making graphics very slow compared to competitors on the market. The Motorola 6845 did not have sprite capabilities either, making this machine not really suitable for playing games, especially since cheaper and better computers were available on the market. Only about 120 software titles were produced for the Camputers Lynx.

The Motorola 6845 or MC6845 is a display controller that was widely used in 8-bit computers from the 1980s. The chip was initially designed to coexist alongside the 6800 CPU, but many manufacturers used it in their z80 and MOS6502 architectures as well.

The 6845 has as main function to regulate timing access to display memory, or VRAM. Other circuitry then uses the address generated by the 6845 to fetch the content of the memory and create the image. While the chip was designed for character display, with some programming pixel graphics could also be displayed.

The functionality and design of the 6845 has been a blue-print for later EGA and VGA graphics cards for the IBM-PC compatibles.

The Z80 quickly became popular in the personal computer market, with many early personal computers, such as the TRS-80 and Sinclair ZX80, using the Z80 as their central processing unit (CPU). It was also widely used in home computers, such as the MSX range, SORD, and the Amstrad CPC, as well as in many arcade games. Additionally, it was also used in other applications such as industrial control systems, and embedded systems. The Z80 was widely used until the mid-1980s, when it was gradually replaced by newer microprocessors such as the Intel 80286 and the Motorola 68000.

The Z80 microprocessor was developed by Zilog, a company founded by Federico Faggin in 1974. The Z80 was released in July 1976, as a successor to the Intel 8080. It was designed to be fully compatible with the 8080, but also included new features such as an improved instruction set, more powerful interrupts, and a more sophisticated memory management system.

The Z80 quickly became popular in the personal computer market, with many early personal computers, such as the TRS-80 and Sinclair ZX80, using the Z80 as their central processing unit (CPU). It was also widely used in home computers, such as the MSX range, SORD, and the Amstrad CPC, as well as in many arcade games. Additionally, it was also used in other applications such as industrial control systems, and embedded systems. The Z80 was widely used until the mid-1980s, when it was gradually replaced by newer microprocessors such as the Intel 80286 and the Motorola 68000. The design was licensed to Synertek and Mostek as well as the European SGS.

The Z80s instruction set is binary compatible with the Intel 8080, so that 8080 code such as the CP/M Operating System and Intel's PL/M compiler for the 8080 can run unmodified on the Z80. The Z80 had many enhancements over the 8080 such as 16-bit data movement instructions, block copy and block I/O instructions, single bit addressing of all registers, IX/IY offset registers, better interrupt system and a complete duplicate register file for context switching during an interrupt.