GameBoy Color inside a TI-83 series calculator

Submitted by Mark on January 15, 2007 - 9:56am.


This is one of the cooler hacks that I've worked on. A while ago, I got thinking....wouldn't it be cool to put the innards of a GameBoy Color inside the case from a broken TI-83 series calculator? The TI-8X series is the calculator of choice for high school classes and standardized tests. There's plenty of space inside and I could even map the keys to the original TI-83 keyboard. Perfect. Now, in theory, I could play Pokemon or Super Mario Land in math class. But with AP Calculus this is probably unwise....

Here's the GBC motherboard....
 


And the back....


Now lets see if this thing still boots in this condition...



Which it, naturally does. But I just had to be sure.

So here's a shot of my TI-84 next to the GBC innards. Looks like this just might work. It's going to take a bit of wiring to map the keys to the original TI-83 keyboard.



I'm gonna have the cartridge load in from the top.



Okay, now because I'm going to use the original keys on the TI-83, I have to find the pins on the GBC board that control the various keystrokes. After a bit of checking with a grounded wire, I managed to find 'em....



Above we see the pinout for the DPAD controls.



And for A/B/select/start.

So next, I take apart a broken TI-83 that I acquired. Here is the contact board for the TI-83 keys, all wired out to go to the GameBoy motherboard.



Here is it all hooked together. Somehow it worked.

Yes, that is scotch tape holding the telephone wire together.



And here's the GBC board on top of what's left of the TI-83 innards.



And here comes the heavily modified back piece.



And here is it all done. You can kinda see Pokemon playing in this picture. Oh yeah, it looks like the clear button is upside down.

Anyways, here's how the keys work out:

2nd = A
ALPHA = B
up/down/left/right = TI keypad
start = enter
select = +



Here's a better shot of it running. The screen is rather dim when you're so used the the GBA SP and DS.



And there's the game loaded into the back. You can see part of the bulge below where the batteries are. I might make a cover for this part because it is rather conspicuous.



So there you have it. Yeah, looking back there's half a dozen things I would have done differently....but hey, it works!

 

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That is freaking awesome

Submitted by Jeff on January 17, 2007 - 10:10pm.
That is freaking awesome mark, nice work :D

This seems to me a quite

Submitted by sandali on January 18, 2007 - 11:31am.
This seems to me a quite silly and childish mod. who would ever put a gameboy in a calculator, appart from some gameoholic silly boy that just cannot stop playing also in school and fooling his teacher with a camouflaged calculator. So sad.

you are a douche

Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 11:28pm.

you are a douche

I guess it's cool.

Submitted by linuxpenguin on January 19, 2007 - 1:12pm.
I agree with Sandali in that I would never want this, seems pointless to me as the TI-83 is actually somewhat bigger than the GBC, IIRC (I sold my GBC). But I don't think Mark intends to play GameBoy during class - I think the cartridge sticking out the back would give him away :) . I'm thinking he just wasn't using his TI-83 now that he's got a TI-84, and maybe hadn't used his GameBoy in a while, and decided to have a little fun mixing the two together.

Anyways I guess it's cool that you can do it, I'm not one for playing games with a calculator though.

I always thought it would be sweet to turn a laptop into an Xbox - take out all the old parts and hook the Xbox to the laptop screen. Now THAT would be sweet! Too bad I don't have an Xbox to try it on (nor do I have the money to buy one :/ )!

Yeah

Submitted by Mark on January 19, 2007 - 3:25pm.
But I don't think Mark intends to play GameBoy during class - I think the cartridge sticking out the back would give him away :) . I'm thinking he just wasn't using his TI-83 now that he's got a TI-84, and maybe hadn't used his GameBoy in a while, and decided to have a little fun mixing the two together.

Yes, exactly.
I always thought it would be sweet to turn a laptop into an Xbox - take out all the old parts and hook the Xbox to the laptop screen. Now THAT would be sweet! Too bad I don't have an Xbox to try it on (nor do I have the money to buy one :/ )!

http://www.benheck.com/Games/Xbox360/x360_page_5.htm

I saw a hack like that not too long ago. This is probably one of the best hacks I've ever seen.

Cool, but. . .

Submitted by linuxpenguin on January 20, 2007 - 3:18pm.
Well that's pretty cool; however I had always imagined that the Xbox360 would be much easier to do this to since it's much smaller. Also the power supply is external - if they were to try making it internal, they'd find themselves pretty tight for space.

If I were to do it, I'd try to make it work without that huge external power brick (either put it inside, or get another smaller PSU that would fit better), and/or with battery power (it'll probably run out after a short while, but I think it would be worthwhile - you can switch location without losing your game).

It would take a lot of work, but it would be sweet.

Already done!

Submitted by Anonymous on February 24, 2008 - 9:01pm.

Ben Heck, the same guy that did the xbox laptop, made a 360 laptop too!
http://benheck.com/02-03-2008/xbox-360-elite-laptop

gameboy

Submitted by chrissy k. on February 23, 2007 - 6:26pm.
HOLY CRAP THAT'S FREAKIN AMAZING!!! I heard rumors of that at school, but i couldn't believe it until i saw it. wow....... it's so cool it's starting to scare me.

Cool!

Submitted by Kuefler on March 13, 2007 - 5:37pm.
This is really cool. I do spend a lot of time playing games on my calculator, this would definitely be a fun thing to have in class.

build it

Submitted by Anonymous on April 6, 2007 - 6:08pm.
I would pay money to have that made

HELP!

Submitted by burnout on May 15, 2007 - 10:04pm.

could you please tell me how to connect the wires from the calculator to the gameboy controls? Thanks, I really need some help with this.

Basically, the GameBoy

Submitted by Mark on May 18, 2007 - 10:48pm.
Basically, the GameBoy buttons are controlled by grounding certain control pins. Touch a grounded wire to a signal pin and its like pressing that key.

Some signal pins:



You can look at more of the pictures above for the locations of the rest of the control pins, like the ones for start, select and so on.

Then basically, you wire those to the contact pairs on the TI83 board so that on each contact, there is a ground and a signal wire. (You should be able to get away with finding a common lead on the board to ground multiple pads. Like I do with the orange wire on the left.)



This whole thing is gonna take quite a while. You have to be fairly patient. It took me a couple hours to do. But I did sharpen my soldering skills, which was good. (By the way, make sure you have a solid solder gun with a nice tip. And good wire. I used some copper telephone wire.)

If you have any more questions or need me to explain it better, I'd be happy to offer some advice.

Some help..

Submitted by hobbes on June 25, 2007 - 12:24pm.

Hello there. I had a similar idea a while back, but couldn't figure out how to do it.
I know almost nothing about wiring/circuits etc.

So, a few questions:

1)What kind of screw driver did you use to take both items apart? I have a few but the screws don't seem to want to come out.

2) You mention that you need a solder gun. Are you just soldering the plastic pieces back together, or do you solder the circuitboard too?

3) I assume I'll use copper telephone wire, but how exactly do you attach it to both boards? Do you just cut off the end of the wire and curl it into the hole for the circuit?

I have no idea how to do any of this, and I'm sorry. But all help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

1. I used a really small

Submitted by Mark on July 1, 2007 - 11:25pm.

1. I used a really small flathead. I think they make a special tri-wing screwdriver, but I couldn't find one.

2. You use the hot tip of the gun to melt a bit of solder fastening the wires to the holes in the board.

3. See #2

If you haven't soldered before, try googling a "soldering how-to" to get you started. Once you feel comfortable with the basics of that, then you'd be ready to move on to a project like this.

Hope this helps! If you have any more questions, let me know.

Thanks

Submitted by Anonymous on May 22, 2007 - 9:45pm.

I finished the project. The tip about using the telephone wire and using a single wire to ground the board was helpful.

Price?

Submitted by Anonymous on May 26, 2007 - 5:19pm.

what do you think would be a good price if I wanted to sell one of these? A gameboy costs $10 and a used calculator costs $60-80, plus a labor fee.

It's up to you, really.

Submitted by Mark on June 4, 2007 - 12:05am.

It's up to you, really. You'll want to cover your cost in parts ($10 or so for the calculator is doable if you find someone with a broken one like I did.....you might be able to check your local high school and see if their math department has a TI-83 graveyard of some kind), then decide how much your time and effort are worth. I'm sure there are people out there willing to pay nicely for a mod like this.

By the way, I'd love to see a picture of your completed work. I hope you were able to do a nicer job on the backpiece than I did!

woee

Submitted by Anonymous on October 21, 2007 - 4:12pm.

coll wat u want me to say?

Hey!

Submitted by Rob on November 14, 2007 - 11:00pm.

Hey, I dont know....

I was taking apart my game boy color while reading this =]!!!

YOUR AMAZING. GREAT job!!! I wanna do that Lol. In lunch they dont allow "gaming consoles" because a kid took off his wrist strap of his psp and wound up under the busses back tire...... Well if i can say its my calculator and cover the game with the back of my hand THATD BE SWEET!!! I have the game boy color dissasembled. on the back of the front frame. There is material on top the Display. Howd you remove it? Seems Glued. I am a beginner Solder-er as well, my calculator broke in math before, put wires back to where they were suppose to be alll by my self =]!!

Well my neighbor just finished highschool and has one of these... He would give it to me, hes in college now. If i took the Display off my GBC.... you get where im going with this. Mind keeping in touch with me?? This sounds like a fun project. I spend houuuurssss doing random stuff, would love doing this. Id be the envy of the nerds?? and the gamers :). Your Mods VERY VERY nice. I have some questions though:

How'd you take the curcuitry off the calculator, on mine its stuck with plastic over it. What were the pins you stuck the Telephone wire to??

I have 3 different colors of Hook-Up wire from Radio Shack. Really good all 1 piece, not threads, i think that'd be fine. But I'm very interested in doing this.

Curious Gamer,
Rob

Just out of curiosity. . .

Submitted by linuxpenguin on November 15, 2007 - 10:44pm.

Just out of curiosity. . . how do you drop something under the bus tire during lunch? Why are you on the bus during lunch?

DUR

Submitted by Rob on November 19, 2007 - 3:40pm.

Hey, DURING LUNCH THEY TOLD US "you can not bring in video game systems anymore."
When a kid was getting OFF OF THE BUS AT HIS HOUSE, his PSP somehow wound up under the busses back tire. Dont ask me how.... but, just to clear things up... =]

Wow, i jsut had this idea,

Submitted by Anonymous on April 4, 2008 - 10:38am.

Wow, i jsut had this idea, so i googled it and your page came up. i jsut need to ask around and see if i can find a dead calculator, but i maybe if you got a ti-84 silver or any of the silvers there would be room to keep the cartrage inside the case or jsut find some way to compress it to make it fit inside, then you could put the sliding cover over the back and it is completly stealth. that would be very helpful in physics class, less than 3 months till i graduate and i think i am going to die :P

NExt STep

Submitted by axllaruse on November 20, 2008 - 4:20am.

The next step could be to create something similar to the
USB Transferer (AKA USB gameboy card interface) in hackaday.com
with the only difference to connect the whole keyboard of the TI83 to your gameboy color), load an emulador of TI (You could load 83/84/89) or any other emulator.

i had an idea like this

Submitted by Slagr on November 20, 2008 - 4:49pm.

i had an idea like this literally 2 days before i heard you'd already done it. great job. however, does the calculator still work? it seems unlikely, seeing as the GBC uses a color screen, but I'm no expert. i would be using a GB pocket for mine, and i thought maybe the screens would be cross-compatable. does this sound plausible?

i saw this an instantly

Submitted by An Idea? on November 20, 2008 - 10:15pm.

i saw this an instantly started thinking, i have all the gameboys and was thinking about which ones would work for this. i've decided to use a sp. its a smaller motherboard and can play both kinds of games. the smaller motherboard my allow you to create a flap or something on the back to cover up the game. and the battery is rechargeable. just find the connectors for the charging port and put it somewhere else. only problem is the screen