*starts a slow clap*, this is, without a doubt, an absolute MUST for any 89 owner. The scripting is brilliantly done, the games run great, and of course, its a freaking gameboy on your calculator!
Everything was done very well, from the amount of user-controlled options to make sure that every game runs at its best, to the ability to have a frame skip (because admittingly the TI is a tad slow).
Rendering 9/10:
The program has been able to display every ROM I threw at it, a few ROMs had a few scrambled graphics, some others had some layers messed up, but besides one case*, everything runs great.
*On Metroid 2, the boss battle was unplayable on my TI-89T
The speed is slow, but what's to be expected? Depending on the situation you can use the handy 'frame-skip' to speed up the game at the cost of less frames, which is useful in long walks (about 2/3 gameboy speed) at 3-5 frames per second, but in boss battles you can slow it down to about 1/4 speed with full 25 frames per second.
Playability 10/10:
The buttons are well placed, To compensate for the TI's vertically challenged screen, you can press the + or - buttons to scroll up and down the game window, which works great because my right thumb falls right on those two keys. The speed does not effect the gameplay in any way (your in math class, you have anything better to do?), except on Pokemon, where the origonal game was so extremely slow, I was playing it with frame-skip 9 all the way!
Save System 10/10:
Quick saves, like most emulators, allow for 10 save states, which is useful in exploring places, stick a save state at a junction, and if you went the wrong way reload so you don't have to walk all the way back.
Perhaps the best feature is the 'quick save' key *coughcough*. All you do is press the On button, and it QUICKLY (I'm talking within milliseconds) closes the game, and has a discrete 'Compressing...' on the status bar while it saves. Great for certain *ehem* situations.
Resources 5/10:
I understand that this is a Gameboy on a calculator, but it does use an ungodly amount of system resources. It will typically run fine for a few days, then get an out of mem error, in which case if I left+right+second+on (archiving everything first), it clears up. It seems to me (although I'm no expert) that the game leaves some sort of fragments on your RAM. That's the only way I can explain why after a system reboot it works fine.
The program itself only takes about 20k bytes, while the game ROM takes over 300k+ depending on the game. I can barely fit 2 in at once, but I often don't.
Overall 9/10:
A great game player, despite its large system use and slow speeds, this emulator is a great 'tool' for any TI owner, and is perfect for anyone who is bored in class. Although the GameBoy's library is quite small, there is enough to get you through a year or two. I couldn't live without this, great program!!!
Show-off Factor 10/10:
"Hey, whatcha doing?"
"Oh, just playing LINK'S AWAKINING ON MY CALCULATOR!"
"OMG, THAT'S AMAZING!"
This program allows you to be the envy of everyone in your Calculus/Trig class.
