GameBoy Color inside a TI-83 series calculator
So I was thinking one day, 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. The back panel of the calculator slides easily over this, so it would not be an issue "in the field".
So there you have it. Yes, it's a little clunky, but everything works!
EDIT 12/06/2008: I was going through Google Analytics, and it appears this crazy hack of mine has garnered a fair bit of interest on the interwebs, having been recently featured on several popular blogs (Make, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Hack a Day, CrunchGear, BoingBoing, and OhGizmo, to name a few.) Thank you for your interest!
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you are a douche
Owned.
AWESOME, Just ne qustion, does it have to be a TI? I dont have that kind of money...
Well motivation!! (I believe it's because it's also very usefull for you...)
It's the smartest mod i ever seen.
Congrats!
Childlike imagination and desire to experiment is the heart hacking.
So, of course, it's childish! That's the entire point.
Good start, Mark. Needs some work, but definitely going in the right direction.
Next project, toaster in a Gameboy Pocket. (One that toasts that fancy tiny bread. lol)
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 :/ )!
Yes, exactly.
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.
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.
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
Well i think nure just playing a RO9M and posing with a controller :)
They are both 360 laptops. (rev. 1 and rev. 3)
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.
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.
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 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.
can you explain how you wire it up in layman's terms and maybe put up some more pictures because i'm a total beginner and i don't really understand what you're saying
Amazon is your friend. Adafruit may have them, as well as some electronics dealers like NewEgg. There are people in the GameBoy modding community that have them for sale. Worth a looksee.
You wouldn't happen to have a higher resolution version of this photo, would you? I've also got a broken TI-83, and several Gameboy colors, figured I'd try to replicate this, and a higher resolution photo would really help me out.
Soldering lots of contacts that small and that close together won't be much fun, but I'm sure I'll be able to get it.
let me get this straight on the cal there are two wires coming from each key one of them you ground and the other you wire to the pins on the gbc right
if im right then how do you ground?
ok let me get this straight there are 2 wires coming from the cal keys one of them your ground the other you connect to the gbc right?
if thats true then how do you ground them
I've decided to do a project just like yours, but I couldn't figure out how you connected the wires using your instructions. I don't know what you mean by signal and ground pins (I know what grounded means) and don't really understand what you mean by a pin. I am new to electronics and everything so I was wondering if you could explain how to connect the wires in words or pictures in a way so that somebody with hardly any experience can understand. Clear pictures with captions would be nice.
P.S: I know I'm asking a lot its just that theres no where else on the internet where it explains this. Also anyone else who knows feel free to reply. thank you ahead of time.
I finished the project. The tip about using the telephone wire and using a single wire to ground the board was helpful.
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. 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!
toy should of use a ti-82 with the pice to connect the computer to as it sticks out a bit, but over all you did a good job.
p.s i am going to do this with my ti-82 and i'll tell you how it works out
coll wat u want me to say?
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. . . how do you drop something under the bus tire during lunch? Why are you on the bus during lunch?
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, 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
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 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 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
Would it be possible to squeeze a bright white LED or two behind the screen for backlighing? Bonus points for making it toggle on and off with one of the TI keys
Well for the backlight, you could wire up a bunch of 0603 leds and then wire it to a 3v point and ground. If you want to wire it to a switch, you might have to put in a tactile switch somewhere. However, for the gameboy SP, there is already a backlight and already a switch. I'm sure you can wire that to a TI switch and if not, you could cut a little hole in the side of your calculator and place the existing switch there. Thinking about trying this some time. Thanks for all the info and stuff.
Dangggg you're so smart! O:
It's so cool how you knew which wires to connect to where..
I would never ever be able to do something as awesome as this >w<
This is really awesome. just so awesome. Well there is a long weekend coming up, and i really wanna try this. is there any way you could get a guide or something to do this? i took apart my gameboy and was really confused, before i reread this and it said gbc. well, yea, a guide for people who've never done this type of thing before. very simplified. anyone willing to write one?
Hey mate, I have quite a few questions for you, so if you have the time I was wondering if you would take the time to email me and get in a conversation. I just have a few questions and suggestions.
-thanks for your time mate ;)
I think if you showed the other side of the gameboy color with it wired into the calculator, that would answer a lot of people's problems.
Ironically, it is possible to emulate the original mono Gameboy using the TI hardware: http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/145/145203.html
Its pretty clever, given the similarities of the Z80-based cpu of the Gameboy and the Z80 of the TI. Cool mod btw.