ticalc.org
Basics Archives Community Services Programming
Hardware Help About Search Your Account
   Home :: Archives :: News :: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs

GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Posted by Michael on 13 May 2005, 17:12 GMT

The idea has been floating around for years, but Ben Ingram is now the first person to implement a Nintendo Gameboy emulator that runs on the 89, 92+, and Voyage 200. GB68k is still under development, but so far features partial emulation of the Gameboy and its features, enough to get some games to work. I'm not very familiar with the innards of a Gameboy, but the readme lists specifically what is not yet emulated (things such as "Real time clock on MBC3" and "Sprite priority behind background layer"). This wonderful program reminds me of Tezxas, the ZX Spectrum emulator.

  Reply to this article


The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.


Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
redsoxfan Account Info

And how do you plug the cartridges in? :-)

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 17:17 GMT


Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
gimpynerd  Account Info
(Web Page)

You have to convert the rom into a usable format. I assume you were joking but just incase you weren't ;).

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 19:21 GMT

Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
slimey_limey  Account Info
(Web Page)

That's what the little smiley means. Except this one :-) means something else.

Reply to this comment    15 May 2005, 00:40 GMT


Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
redsoxfan Account Info

Yeah, I was. When will there be a news item that doesn't have to do with emulators for video game consoles. ;)

Reply to this comment    16 May 2005, 13:53 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
katmaster200 Account Info

NEVER :)

Reply to this comment    24 May 2005, 02:56 GMT

Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Sam3.14 Account Info
(Web Page)

This looks like a great program, but I haven't been able to find any games to try it out with. Does anyone know of a site where you can download legal gameboy ROMs to convert?

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 17:49 GMT

Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Reginald Tucker  Account Info
(Web Page)

just google it...took me awhile to find some...

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 18:39 GMT

Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Master_Zog  Account Info
(Web Page)

This site (see link) has some nice looking free games. I haven't tested any of them yet though.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 18:55 GMT


Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
airdonut41 Account Info

This site has a ton of excellent games. <http://www.rom-world.com/>
I got final fantasy and super mario from it.
Note: I highly recommend trying seiken densetsu

Reply to this comment    31 May 2005, 19:55 GMT


Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
David Phillips  Account Info
(Web Page)

Here are two games that I wrote. They were both tested to work on a real Game Boy and Game Boy Color. I am interested to know if they work with GB68k:

http://tinyurl.com/d99er
http://tinyurl.com/a65c7

Reply to this comment    17 May 2005, 14:26 GMT


Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Ben Ingram  Account Info

Yeah, they both run pretty well. Especially pong =)

Reply to this comment    17 May 2005, 23:14 GMT

Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Reginald Tucker  Account Info
(Web Page)

I got Link's Awakening, Metroid 2, and Final Fantasy Legends working on my Titanium. Link's Awakening and Metroid 2 are kind of slow, but Final Fantasy Legends runs great. The biggest problem is that the 89 screen isn't tall enough. The author should consider including a "crunch" mode...

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 18:42 GMT

Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Master_Zog  Account Info

With a compressed screen, it's very hard to read the text in most games. Since all the games I've found that run well have lots of text, I don't think a 'crunch' mode would be that useful.

A potential idea is to add sprite following. This would make the screen automatically scroll to keep the player character visible. I may give this a shot at some point.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 19:03 GMT

Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
gimpynerd  Account Info
(Web Page)

Good point. If you can get an auto-scrolling feature up and running that be awesome. I'd offer to help but I am unfortunately only a Z80 man at the moment.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 19:20 GMT

Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
gimpynerd  Account Info
(Web Page)

Although in some games, say Metroid 2 for example a "crunch" mode would be more usful. It is totally up to you but I think you might want to through it in there as an option in the final release. Or you good through it in a beta and ask people what they think... I'm just throwing out some ideas though.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 19:24 GMT

Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Travis Evans  Account Info

How would the emulator know which sprite is your character?

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 19:39 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Master_Zog  Account Info

It would have to be told on a game by game basic. The CartConvert program could reference a database while converting the rom, and add a bit of info which tells the emu which sprite to follow, or where to look in memory for the x and y position. There's an snes emu for the gba which uses this technique.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 23:47 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Michael McElroy Account Info
(Web Page)

Um... no. There are no working SNES emulators for the GBA. PocketSNES is only a partially working example.

Reply to this comment    21 May 2005, 14:43 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Ben Ingram  Account Info

http://www.snesadvance.org/

Reply to this comment    21 May 2005, 23:26 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Michael McElroy Account Info
(Web Page)

I repeat: PocketSNES (which has become SNES Advance) is only a partially working example. Have you actually tried USING it? The only game I've ever had work was Super Mario World, and that was after using a hacked save file that autoloaded when you ran the game.

Reply to this comment    22 May 2005, 23:02 GMT

Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
benryves  Account Info
(Web Page)

You'd be surprised how effective line-skipping is. Look at Sega's Game Gear - that's essentially a repackaged SMS (Master System). The only major differences was that the VDP's CRAM is twice the size on the GG (a word per colour, rather than byte) and that the GG had a lower-res screen. You could switch it into a SMS mode, which skipped lines to scale down the display. Some games are horribly illegible (I suspect that "Prince of Persia" is just the SMS game in a GG cart in SMS mode) but for the most part they're totally playable.
After all, it shouldn't be too tricky to implement, just an edit of the code that copies the buffer to the display.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 20:05 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Master_Zog  Account Info

Well, I'll look into it again. No promises though =)

>After all, it shouldn't be too tricky to implement, just an edit of the code that copies the buffer to the display
Right, except I don't draw the entire gb screen each frame, only the part that will show up. So it would either be slower, if I just draw the whole gb screen and copy every third line, or more work/program size, if I actually scale each tile as it's being drawn.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 23:51 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
benryves  Account Info
(Web Page)

I've not played with the GameBoy's VDP at all, but I'm sure you could always change the code VDP code to switch so that when loading tiles you scale them, and when drawing sprites you scale the coordinates as you go...

Reply to this comment    14 May 2005, 02:09 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Zeroko  Account Info
(Web Page)

Hmm...PocketNES (for the GBA) uses scaling & seems to run fast enough. It just flickers the last line between the last 2 of the actual tile/sprite (8x8 segment, anyway), which rarely messes up text. I know the GBA has a larger screen, but so does the NES. I have not tried PocketSNES (no games for it), but I bet it manages to do the same, & the SNES is a faster machine.

Reply to this comment    14 May 2005, 14:46 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
DWedit  Account Info
(Web Page)

PocketNES uses DMA to change the scrolling location each scanline, so scaling is completely free.
Pocket Snes does not exist, since some profiteering jerk bought a related domain, which made the author rename the emulator. Snes Advance (the current name) does not support scaling, possibly because there's very little ram left to have a DMA table for scrolling, either that or it's just not implemented.

Reply to this comment    14 May 2005, 20:21 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Michael McElroy Account Info
(Web Page)

SNES Advance is a practically non-working model.

Reply to this comment    21 May 2005, 14:46 GMT


Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Michael McElroy Account Info
(Web Page)

I disagree. For those of us who have flash carts for the Game Boy Advance, there's an emulator called PocketNES that runs NES games that uses a 'crush' feature to squeeze the whole image onto the screen. Holding down L and pressing Select lets you adjust the compression method, and one of them makes the text almost completely readable. Besides, it's not hard to read text that is slightly smaller than normal...

Reply to this comment    21 May 2005, 14:42 GMT

Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
srunni Account Info
(Web Page)

How do you use the converting program? When I tried it, it just started and shut down immediately.

Reply to this comment    13 May 2005, 23:24 GMT


Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
gimpynerd  Account Info
(Web Page)

open the command prompt
type
[name of the program] [name of the rom] [on-calc name max 6 letters]
make sure it is all in the same directory.

Reply to this comment    14 May 2005, 00:31 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
srunni Account Info
(Web Page)

By command prompt, do you mean run?

Reply to this comment    14 May 2005, 21:43 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
benryves  Account Info
(Web Page)

To access the Windows command prompt, click "Start" then "Run", and type in "CMD" and click OK.

Reply to this comment    14 May 2005, 23:36 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
José Sousa  Account Info
(Web Page)

Or you can do like me and do an *.bat file (with notepad) with what you want to write on windows console...

Reply to this comment    15 May 2005, 00:17 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
benryves  Account Info
(Web Page)

Or use a piece of software like rjhExtensions (click in "Web Site" link) that allows you to right-click "Command Prompt Here".

Reply to this comment    15 May 2005, 09:36 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
José Sousa  Account Info
(Web Page)

Good one indeed!! I never had looked for that kind of programs... very usefull, thanks for the tip...

Reply to this comment    15 May 2005, 13:58 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
srunni Account Info
(Web Page)

Once I bring up the command prompt, how do I tell the computer to use the converter program?

Reply to this comment    15 May 2005, 00:11 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Chris Williams  Account Info

Run it.

Reply to this comment    16 May 2005, 18:12 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
burntfuse  Account Info
(Web Page)

120d//!!!

Yeah, just type "[progname] [args]" (without the quotes). Haven't you ever used a command line before? ;-)

Reply to this comment    16 May 2005, 21:03 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Rob van Wijk  Account Info

You guys just told him how to start a command prompt in the first place. Seems a good bet he's never used one before. :P

Reply to this comment    17 May 2005, 03:03 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Chris Williams  Account Info

I was an insensitive clod, yeah. But I don't think this is really the right place to give tutorials on how to use the command prompt.

Reply to this comment    17 May 2005, 06:15 GMT


Re(9): GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Rob van Wijk  Account Info

I see your point (and I kinda agree with it too). Just a suggestion though, next time tell him to google for command prompt, that's just as short and a lot more helpful. Just my two cents.

Reply to this comment    18 May 2005, 01:20 GMT


Re: Re(9): GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
airdonut41 Account Info

I downloaded the ROM image zelda.gb. What exactly do I type into the command prompt to get GameboyConvert to change the game to a TI file under the name "zelda"?

Reply to this comment    19 May 2005, 20:32 GMT


Re: Re: Re(9): GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Rakka Account Info

Drag the GameboyConvert prog to your desktop.
Drag the rom to your desktop.
Open the command prompt.
Type (and press enter): "cd Desktop"
Type: "GameboyConvert zelda.gb zelda"
Close the command prompt.
Send the files over to your calc (remember to send the GB68k files too).

Reply to this comment    19 May 2005, 23:04 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re(9): GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
greentrace Account Info

When I did this for Pokemon with -pack, it said yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo. Why?

Reply to this comment    1 December 2008, 00:00 GMT

Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
airdonut41 Account Info

I am not very good with computers or calculators for that matter, and I was wondering how to get the games for my TI 89 Titatnium. I already have a bunch, but I have no idea about how to use a gameboy emulator and change the ROM files(?). Any help is appreciated.

Reply to this comment    14 May 2005, 15:29 GMT


Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Sam Varan  Account Info

Where are the files saved after they are converted?

Reply to this comment    19 May 2005, 19:16 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
burntfuse  Account Info
(Web Page)

Probably in the same directory as the original files.

Reply to this comment    19 May 2005, 21:04 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Sam Varan  Account Info

well i can't find them! I run the converter with the right parameters, and the line finishes, and a new line comes down, but no files!

Reply to this comment    19 May 2005, 22:12 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Ben Ingram  Account Info

What's the exact thing you're typing onto the command line? Are you sure the converter isn't reporting any errors?

Reply to this comment    19 May 2005, 23:10 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Rakka Account Info

And are you in the right directory (in the command prompt). If the files are on your desktop (GameboyConvert, rom.gb), you have to CD to the Desktop when you first open the command line.

Reply to this comment    19 May 2005, 23:23 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Sam Varan  Account Info

yes, i did all that.
no errors reported.
everything was in the same directory.
the command prompt just went to a new line, and no new files appeared.
my comp is a NEW windows XP, so i don't think there's a program conflict or anything.

Reply to this comment    20 May 2005, 00:01 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
Ben Ingram  Account Info

What's the exact thing you're typing onto the command line?

Reply to this comment    20 May 2005, 02:40 GMT


Re: Re: GB68k: Gameboy Emulator for 68k Calcs
nightzeriz Account Info

Where can I get a Gameboy converter?

Reply to this comment    5 June 2005, 18:16 GMT

1  2  3  4  5  6  

You can change the number of comments per page in Account Preferences.

  Copyright © 1996-2012, the ticalc.org project. All rights reserved. | Contact Us | Disclaimer