At least Game Boy games don't crash the Game Boy...

I actually laughed when I read that! But, that is because professional, paid programmers write those things. (professional meaning that they went to college to learn how! And paid meaning it is their occupation/career) Those two things *tend* to make a difference on quality and how good the program is (not that TI games aren't good--because they are!!!!! They just tend to crash the calculator) The latter is probably due to the instability of the calculator, though.

Matt H.

Heh, not quite. You don't learn how to program Game Boy in college. Heck, my college (as far as I know) does not even offer a course in assembly language! Most of college is theoretical. You learn anything like that at your job, or on your own, and then get a job. College just gives a base to learn it off of, so that when you download doc that gives rough specs on the Game Boy, you aren't totally lost.

It is very possible to crash the Game Boy while coding it. And Game Boy games DO have bugs. I haven't played very many, but Zelda comes to mind as having bugs (for specifics, read the walk-through that some guy on the internet wrote).

There are several reasons why you don't get Game Boy games that crash. The first part is that they are heavily tested. You don't burn 50,000 ROMs and then find out it has a bug that crashes on the final level. That just doesn't happen (too often). It's unfortunate that computer software manufacturers don't think of it that way. I think the original unpatched Tomb Raider was unbeatable, for example, due to bugs. "Who cares if it doesn't work, they can download the patch." Burned ROM chips can't be patched, so it better be perfect the first time around.

Another part, as was mentioned above, is that more time end money is invested into games. Programmers have the luxury of testing teams, and have the entire day to work on a game, not just a few hours after school.

The final reason is that the Game Boy is designed to play games. Everytime you put a new cartridge in your Game Boy, you are complete replacing the software. Everytime you turn it off, everything is restarted (except for battery-backed SRAM). You don't have to worry about a calculator OS getting corrupted, other progams trashing memory locations, flags, etc. All code is contained entirely in the cart. There are no ROM calls, libraries, etc., to go wrong. It's all your code running.

Wow, this post is long. I hope it clears some stuff for people. As a closing note, I like my CGB better than my TI-86 and TI-89 :)

(though it isn't much help in Calculus or Physics...)

Maybe TI should make calculators with with cartridges :)

They have those. They're called HP's :)

where could I find an HP??
guitarguy@rescueteam.com

go to www.hpcalc.org and download the free emulator for the new hp49g

didn't see a link, and that is for HP calcs! I was thinking cartridges for TIs!

true!
and also, the peoples at nintendo test these games OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER till all the bugs are fixed.
CALCULATOR games, on the other hand, are released without any special permission.

That is very true. Games must also pass the big N's lot tests before they can be released. They are very strict on what games can be released. Things like obscure sound bugs that would only happen on very old DMG's will cause a game to be rejected.

*sigh*

Hey, I got first comment!

Anyway, its cool that there's a trend towards TI-Gaming
But, lets hope the prison...err sch**l wont ban calcs like they banned GBs and any variants of it(like the MGB - the Messed up Game Boy my friend has - he dropped it from his table.

banning calcs? you nuts... calcs are school tools, most people don't have games even. I doubt they can BAN something WE need, and they are too cheap to supply.

My school already, resets your memory if they catch you playing games:P

Banning calcutors would serve no point to anything. Most of the people at my school dont even know the first thing to do with there new TI-83 plus. all they know how to do is add, subtract, mulitply, and divide.

Also if ur going to play games just dont get caught. I dont see how hard that is to do. If a teacher is coming turn the calc off. If you get caught playing a game u r just to lazy or way to into the game and need syceatric help from a councaler (you know they have those kinds of people now)

Well, at least the 83+ is better for *keeping* games on it. By this, I mean ION's archive capibility. Put all ion games in archive, along with the ION 1.1 installation files group. If your ram gets cleared, the programs are still there... just ungroup ION.

N

My teacher has an 83+
She resets ARCHIVE+RAM+APPS+GROUPS
So, 83+ games have been totally eliminated.
I have an 86
I use the utility "chmasc" to recover my RAM.
It is WAAAAY COOL

Your teacher rests the APPS! - You can't have games that are apps (well, until just a few weeks ago, that is). What about the CBL/CBR APP? That one (even though it comes with the calc it can be deleted) can be important. (I know, I accidently deleted it on my friend's TI-83+ when I was putting games on it - I own only an 86)

Also, where do you go about getting the "chmasc" utility?

Never mind, I found it. (Duh!!!! - I never looked for it before so I didn't know)

The one thing wrong with Game Boys is that you can't use them at school. (and you have to pay for the games)

You have to pay for games because they are of significantly higher quality. Though, the new Sonic game for the 89/92+ is _very_ impressive for a calculator. Most Game Boy games do not have parallax scrolling (due to the fact it only has one background).

Now, what would be cool, is if Nintendo made a portable that would run Super NES games (though as an attachment...being built in would make it way too big). You could have some sweet games that way. Hehe. It could even support the Super Gameboy :)

For all who care (even though I'm posting this months after the origanal posting) Sega has actually made a device that plays full size Genesis games. I think its called the Nomad. Now if only I could hook my SegaCD & Sega 32x to it. Hmmm... How about TI with 32-bit graphics... nah...

Counselor

Psychiatric

"their" and "you're"

-Just thought I'd get into the spirit of things. :)

...too lazy...