Gameboy Development

TI-boy SE – A Game Boy emulator for TI calculators

About 7 years ago people discussed whether the then new Game Boy Advance could emulate SNES games. The general reponse was that the GBA would be able to emulate SNES when hell froze over. So came SNES Advance by Loopy and Flubba, and hell froze over. Sure it was slow and didn’t have sound, but it was proof of concept that it could be done.

People said the same thing about Game Boy emulation on the TI-8x series of calculators. Yet, calc84/calc84maniac recently released the first public beta version of his TI-boy SE emulator. And it even has sound.
The emulator works on some TI-8x calculators (TI-83+SE, TI-84+, and TI-84+SE) and has support for a small number of games, for example Tetris, Zelda – Link’s Awakening and Kirby. Even if it’s slow, and sometimes glitchy it’s an amazing feat. I would definitely dub this the coolest TI calculator project of this year. (Or perhaps ever…)
The emulator works by using the similarity between the Z80 and the Game Boy CPU (which is a reduced and slightly modified Z80) in a clever way. I’ll write more about the details in a future post.

Links:
Download from ticalc.org
Download from gbdev.gg8.se (Mirror, v0.0.2 alpha)
Discussion on the Omnimaga forums
Youtube video (With sound)
Youtube video (Grayscale)

13 Comments to TI-boy SE – A Game Boy emulator for TI calculators

1. 

   U MUST INCLUDE POKEMON
asdfa on August 20th, 2009
2. 

   when are you going to support ti-84+ younger than 2 years old
faba on August 23rd, 2009
3. 

   guys… nice app… i see a bright future for an app like this
Dj0wbns on August 24th, 2009
4. 

   hey, can u make one that works on the ti-84’s that are younger than 2 years?
berrykerry789 on August 25th, 2009
5. 

   I have sent the sample star program to my ti 83+ but when i run it, nothing happens. Do I have to send something else to by calc also?
m on August 25th, 2009
6. 

   I have an 83+. It doesn’t have enough non-archive memory to even un-archive the space game included with the ti-boy.
   Is it possible to run a gameboy game on ti-83+ (no SE)?
a on August 25th, 2009
7. 

   I have tried dragging some .gb files on the app creater.
   However, bigger files cause in error.
   Is anyone else having this problem?
jake on August 25th, 2009
8. 

   hi all
jake on August 25th, 2009
9. 

   Wow, great thing!
n on August 25th, 2009
10. 

    So does this work in a TI-Nspire with the 84 keypad?
Al on September 10th, 2009
11. 

    No, it doesn’t. :\
Rodrigo Teixeira on October 14th, 2009
12. 

    is there a way to get it working on the ti-84 silver edition, which has the 2.43 os. Also is there an updated one somewhere?
jeffrey on October 21st, 2009
13. 

    Hola, he bajado el emulador para dreamcast de todo emuladores y opera estupendo. ¿Alguno más a utilizado este emulador?
Placido on December 13th, 2020

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