TI-Boy CE is a Game Boy emulator for the TI-84 Plus CE and the TI-83 Premium CE graphing calculators.
Now supports both the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color, but not Super Game Boy (and never Game Boy Advance).
This emulator is currently in the alpha state, so while it is intended to be stable, it is possible that it could crash and cause data loss. It is advised to put any important files in Archive memory before running the emulator.
Grab the latest pre-built releases at https://github.com/calc84maniac/tiboyce/releases or check out the Build Instructions to build from source.
The easiest method is to use the online converter here. All conversion is done locally in your browser, so there's no need to worry about uploading copyrighted data.
Alternatively, a command-line utility (tiboyce-romgen.exe) to convert ROM files to TI AppVars is included. There are a couple of ways to do this:
Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory containing the utility using cd
. Then run the following:
tiboyce-romgen.exe -t "Game Title Here" "path\to\romfile" NamePrefix
Drag-and-drop a ROM file onto the utility, which will then prompt for a game title and a name prefix.
Note that the name prefix provided for the ROM must be at most 5 characters long. This is because the remaining 3 characters are used for naming additional files created by the utility and the emulator itself. The game title provided will be displayed in the emulator's ROM list.
The utility will generate multiple AppVar (*.8xv) files with the given prefix. Send all of them to the calculator in Archive memory.
If you get a missing DLL error when running the command-line utility, you may need to install the Universal C Runtime.
To convert save files between PC and AppVar formats, see the Converting Save Files section below.
Send the TIBOYCE.8xp
and TIBoyDat.8xv
files to the calculator. Optionally also send the TIBoySkn.8xv
file which contains skin images.
If your calculator is running OS v5.3 or newer, you can keep all of these files in Archive and run prgmTIBOYCE
from the prgm menu.
If your calculator is running OS v5.5 or newer, you must also jailbreak your calculator with a tool such as arTIfiCE.
If your calculator is older than OS v5.3, the TIBOYCE
program must be unarchived. Run it with Asm(prgmTIBOYCE)
.
You should now see a list of the ROMs on the calculator. Choose one with ↑ ↓ and start it with 2nd enter.
All emulator configuration items can be edited on either a global or per-game basis. The configuration to edit can be selected on the main menu after loading a ROM.
When editing the per-game configuration, changing an option will override the global configuration and mark it with a *
. Press del on an overridden configuration item to revert it to global.
TIBoySkn.8xv
file.Remap controls as described in the Default controls section. Select an option to remap, then press the button to remap it to or press on to cancel.
If a chosen button is already mapped to another button, the two buttons are swapped. Any conflicting buttons between the global and per-game configuration will be removed from the per-game configuration automatically.
Emulator shortcut buttons, aside from the menu and quick exit buttons, may be unmapped using the del key.
The various files used by the emulator are as follows (replace Name with ROM prefix and # with digits):
File | Description |
---|---|
Name.8xv | The file specifying the game title and how large the ROM is. |
NameCfg.8xv | Per-game configuration settings for this ROM, if any. |
NameR##.8xv | Multiple files containing the actual ROM data. |
NameSAV.8xv | The contents of the battery-backed cartridge save data. |
NameStA.8xv | The automatic save state for this game. |
NameSt#.8xv | The manual save state for the given numbered slot. |
NameSv#.8xv | The cartridge save associated with a numbered save state. |
TIBoyCE.8xp | The executable launcher. |
TIBoyCfg.8xv | The current emulator configuration. |
TIBoyDat.8xv | The core emulator data, loaded by the launcher. |
TIBoySkn.8xv | Optional skins to be displayed in “no scaling” mode. |
Note that save states cannot be loaded properly if the associated cartridge save data file is deleted or replaced. When transferring save states, make sure to include both the St#
and Sv#
files. However, this doesn't apply to games that have no cartridge save data in the first place.
You can convert between PC emulator and TI-Boy CE save file formats using the provided utilities.
Note that only cartridge save files (*.sav
or *.srm
on PC or *SAV.8xv
on calculator) may be converted. Save states are emulator-specific and cannot be converted.
The easiest method is to use the online converter here. All conversion is done locally in your browser, so there's no need to worry about uploading personal data.
Alternatively, a command-line utility (tiboyce-convertsav.exe) to convert between save file formats is included. There are a couple of ways to do this:
Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory containing the utility using cd
. Then run the following:
tiboyce-convertsav.exe "path\to\inputfile" "path\to\outputfile"
Drag-and-drop a save file onto the utility, which will then prompt for an output file name.
Note that when creating a *SAV.8xv
AppVar, the name prefix provided must be the same as the converted ROM, or TI-Boy CE will not load it. This utility may also be used to change the prefix of a save AppVar if a ROM was converted with a different name.
If you get a missing DLL error when running the command-line utility, you may need to install the Universal C Runtime.
To build the emulator:
build.bat
if on Windows or build.sh
if on some other OS.To build the rom generation tool, use the provided Visual Studio solution in the tiboyce-romgen directory, or use the Makefile to build with GCC or your C compiler of choice.
The same applies to the save converter in the tiboyce-convertsav directory.
Report issues / bugs to the issue tracker, found here:
https://github.com/calc84maniac/tiboyce/issues
TI-Boy CE — a Game Boy emulator for the TI-84 Plus CE calculator family. Copyright © 2018 – 2022 Brendan Fletcher