Game Boy Color emulator for the TI-Nspire released

[DJ Omnimaga]

Right after the Nspire exploit release (to allow ASM/C to be ran on TI-Nspire calculators), comes Calc84maniac's gbc4nspire, his Game Boy Color emulator for the TI-Nspire! Yes, you read it: not just regular Game Boy, Game Boy Color too! Of course, due to the Nspire limitations, there are no colors, but GBC games can still effectively be ran on your calculator now. The colors are converted to 16(?) level grayscale. Not only the emulation speed is the same as the old GB/GBCs, but the emulator still could run faster if speed restriction was removed.



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7siYMHDdJI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7siYMHDdJI</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlDw5FQDIPM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlDw5FQDIPM</a>

It goes to show the Nspire potential and this is only the beginning. Much more than a Game Boy Color emulator will be doable. Why? Because this is the first ASM program ever released for this calculator model, calc84maniac has just started to learn ARM assembly and will most likely improve over time, as will do the other new TI-Nspire ASM/C programmers out there.

So now, those who thought they would have to rely on the 84+SE emulator built-in their calculator to play games have been proven wrong.

In addition to this emulator release, Goplat has updated his TI-Nspire emulator since then, and it is now compatible with the exploit. However, no offense to United-TI, but here at Omnimaga, we were nice enough to not force guests to register to download calculator files and attachments, so those who don't feel like having to sign up on a forum just to download a calculator development software can now download Goplat's emulator directly in our archives. We have provided a link to his UTI profile for people who want to locate updates easier, though, since our copy might not always be in sync with his latest.

We also added the exploit to our download section, as well as the GBC emulator, sort of. Both downloads redirects to the respective Ticalc.org file info pages, so it is always up to date, as these softwares might be frequently updated for a while. A mirror link to copies hosted by us is avaliable on each download pages, though, in case ticalc is down when you try downloading these files. It should make them easier to find, too, by our visitors.

gbc4nspire (in Our TI programs and utilities)
Ndless (in TI Shells, Kernels and Plugins)
TI-Nspire Emulator (in TI Programming Tools)

UPDATE! Some pictures of the emulator running on real TI-Nspire, followed by Youtube videos showing it in action on the machine, were added above. Thanks mostly to TI-BANK members (altough the picture author is unknown) for providing these pics and both them and #ti for the videos.

[Galandros]

Yay for 'ndless possibilities.

[bwang]

Amazing! It seems to be quite compatible too. The only ROM I've tried that did not work was Super Mario Land, which is strange seeing that there are screenshots of it on the front page.

[DJ Omnimaga]

For some reasons, Mario Land seems to have posed issues to many people not just with calcs. Idk, maybe a specific rom of it needs to be used, but I remember it was an hard game to emulate. It probably uses quite hackish ways to do its stuff.

[mapar007]

This. Is. Awesome.

Eternal respect for calc84maniac, ExtendeD, geogeo, Goplat, and all the others involved in the Nspire hacking process.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Welcome back Mapar ^^

And yeah thanks everyone who worked on this in the TI community!

I wish I could have contributed, but I realised with the years that such low level stuff is just not for me, especially after failing every college classes involving programming, even though it was higher level stuff, then when I tried learning C on my own from tutorials a few years later. Oh well, I guess if someone does a new language like TI-BASIC or some sort of game/rpg maker I should be fine

[mapar007]

Heh, I actually still read the forums, but the homework stacks are always growing... Meh.
I wanted to do some OS analysis too, but I couldn't find a decent ARM course in my first 5 googling minutes, and I don't even own an NSpire, so I backed out.

[JoeyBelgier]

Can you add a simple how-to?
I'm sick as fuck and I can't concentrate xd
EDIT: + I'm retarded

[ztrumpet]

Yea!  Ah, the 'ndless possibilities...
Great job calc84!

[Builderboy]

So epic on so many levels ^^ Now i need to bug my buddy bwang to use his nSpire

[DJ Omnimaga]

yay it is running on my Nspire now. Tried Zelda OOA and OOS, Metroid II Return Of Samus, SMBDX and worked pretty well.

I might not play often until there's a OS patch to fix the 1.1 power management bug, though, because it's quite annoying to have to remove the Nspire keyboard and a battery everytime I want to turn my calc back on. Also, since I run Windows 7 I have to go in task manager/processes/kill process to close TI-Nspire computer link software, otherwise it just freezes on exit

[DJ Omnimaga]

I have posted this on Digg, now, to spread the world more.

http://digg.com/programming/Game_Boy_Color_emulator_for_TI_Nspire_calculators_released

Feel free to digg it (you need to click the Digg button below the number on yellow background, altough you need to sign up)

EDIT: A suggestion I have for the GB emu is making the contrast changing much slower, because atm it changes incredibly fast so it's hard to choose a precise contrast level

[Builderboy]

Hey i just tried this out today, and let me say AWESOME JOB calc84!  It looks beautiful and perfect in every way! (Except for the stupid blurry LCD screen ) My friend bwang has the 1.1 glitch however, so i wont be playing it all the time, he wants to protect his terminals.  And its so awesome how fast it runs as well (although i would have * toggle instead of being held down) just goes to show what will be possible on the nSpire!

[calc84maniac]

This should be a quick fix for the power management bug. Before turning off the calc, select this program. After turning on the calculator, press Enter or click to run it, and it will reset for you.

[DJ Omnimaga]

WOW nice, thanks for this. I will include this in the downloads section I think, cuz it might be useful for many people even if it's simple.