How to play Pokemon on your calculator
It seems the classic Pokemon games can be played on just about anything these days and that includes your good old trusty calculator.
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From the original GameBoy, Nintendo 64, PC and mobile phones, the likes of Pokemon Red and Blue can be ported to an increasing number of platforms. The latest of these, and perhaps the most impressive to date, is a calculator.
Now, this isn’t just your bulk standard calculator from yesteryear, though. The old Pokemon games don’t require much hardware power, but they do need an appropriate sized screen. After all these games were designed for the primitive GameBoy system and are under 1MB in size.
Pokemon Red playing on a calculator…[ad name=”article2″]
Newer scientific calculators do come with a screen with enough pixels to play the game and most actually have the hardware inside to power it. It is ‘most’ because some don’t have the memory needed to fit Pokemon on it.
Firstly, you will need to connect it to your PC and install the relevant software. You will need the following in addition to a compatible calculator:
- Mini USB port cable
- Pokemon ROM
- Software: TI Connect C
- GameBoy emulator
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Unfortunately you are limited to either Pokemon Red, Blue or Yellow. Presumably this is because these are GameBoy original games and anything from a later GameBoy, such as the Color, wouldn’t be compatible.
That relevant software and how to install it can be found in PokeTips’ tutorial below.
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Don’t get too excited though, there are plenty of better alternatives to play those iconic Pokemon games. The calculator version doesn’t even have sound so it’s more a bit of fun to get it on there.
In terms of performance, the PC remains the benchmark, simply due to the power and vast options available. There are also handheld devices with built in game controllers that can play pretty much all games.
The calculator port is impressive but don’t expect to see trainers sitting around with calculators any time soon.
