My first foray into programming was writing BASIC programs for my calculator. I whipped up a simple number guessing game and was the coolest guy in the class for about a week.
I used to love making games on my 84 in math, took away from the boredom of learning the same stuff two years in a row after being taken out of my honors classes for no reason
@@majomist 😂 it took me a minute too, as he was getting frustrated with the jack I was grooving along and then I actually listened to it and realised it was a custom, to the moment bit of playing
James just making his own cable is so awesome. I like how he goes over how he did it instead of just glossing over it. Not a tutorial obviously but I appreciate how much work he puts into something as simple as a cable
As someone who used to code apps and games on TI-83 Plus in my high school days, glad to see someone raising awareness about graphic calculator gaming. :) Just so you know, there are many far better games available, many of which actually decent ports/clones of famous games, as well as some great games specifically made for this platform. Some were coded in TI-BASIC, but most were programmed in Z80 assembly.
I played a couple Metroid 2 clones. Not my favorite metroid but they were well done. Also some unplayable pacman game that scrolled the screen so it just turned in to mud.
@@Mister_Brown Kinda interesting to think about now, everybody at my school had phoenix and a couple others but I have no idea who was actually getting them onto the calculator to begin with, before they got transferred around via link cable.
Oh, and in case anyone is curious, in Ireland we don't use these. We use €2 Classwiz Casio calculators, unfortunately we miss out on all this mischief.
0:34 I can’t explain it, but as someone who enjoys making cosplays and DIY fashion, I relate to the way James looked at the schematic and thought “This is expensive, but I have all those parts, so I can make that myself.” It’s so cool to see the same thought processes happen with completely different materials!
I installed flappy bird on people's calculators for $10 a pop when in high school😂 so this video was a blast from the past. Thanks for the memories lol I also had a janky homemade cable like yours lol
I don't know what's better, the concept of the video, the fact he's making his own data cable or the fact the highest resolution of the video currently is 360p
The Z80 microprocessors in those calculators is the same as the gameboy. In fact you can emulate gameboy games on it. It is more tricky, but totally doable. You can also hook up headphones or a speaker to the jack at the bottom. You can even play piano, music, and grayscale movies on them. No much of a movie given the limitations, but still. There may be a way around the storage limit with a library called USB8x, but I never actually did that. I started programming on these calculators. That's where I get my username.
Hey love this. I taught myself ti-basic so I could make simple games on my ti-83 instead of paying attention in math class. If you had a computer and the link cable you could make games in z80 assembly, but as I did not I made all my games in ti-basic using the keyboard on the ti-83. Took forever to type anything.
Dude, that's awesome! I remember my brother putting Pokemon yellow on a graphing calculator like 12 or so years ago. It still blows me away! Looking forward to seeing your next projects! Btw, did Wade make that background music for you? If those, twas awfully Dank of him!
The Wolfenstein 3D "port" is the best game for the Ti-83+ in my opinion. Plays very similarly to the original game. There's also a version of Doom that isn't as good, but still impressive.
i can see the differences between dank and jame's channels become more apparent. jame is developing into a unique youtuber in his own right. love you jame!
Man this takes me back to middle school when they had a massive surplus of these things collecting dust in boxes and they all came in that clear blue color that for some reason i really liked as a kid. Looking back I'm mad I didn't grab one to keep. While it is handy that most phones today have calculators preinstalled a weird part of me misses handling one of these.
me = Wait... which James is this? James = *creates Frankenstein cable for TI Calculator from many E-corpses me = ah... that James. The Magpie Savior James
I used a TI-82 because it was cheaper and basically identical to the 83 but I remember using the 83 in school constantly, they had them locked away because people would steal them if they didn't account for every single one. We had to sign each one out. I still have at least 3 of these in a drawer in the garage, all dead (except the TI-82 comically)
Ah this brings back so many good memories! I had a TI-86 which even had the option of loading external programs in assembly, i had full fledged port of Super Mario for Gameboy and Sega Columns on it, mindblowing
I love how the text based GTA programmer loved GTA so much he didn't feel the need to spell gangsta right. Because it says "gansta" Maybe a typo, maybe he had only heard the word and didn't realize it should have the word "gang" in it, because he lives in a utopian \ gated community that has no OG's and everyone picks up their dog's poop and there are cherubs flying around shooting people with dopamine arrows, and poor people are pixelated, so as to not disturb the caviar.
Ah, beautiful, reminds me of school days too. I had a TI-89 Titanium, though-fancy! No, actually, same same, but different. I only played three games on it: "Tetrics" (Tetris clone, obviously), "Bomberdude" (Bomberman) and "Mr. Worm" (Snake clone, but with arbitrary turns instead of just 90 degrees).
In secondary school we used TI-84s with exam mode, which when turned on would completely wipe your program storage and with it the progress I had in the 2d platformer version of portal
I used to love those calculators in school. A friend at the time learned how, and taught me how, to code games into the calculator and play them. So this brings back memories, though we never played GTA LOL and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t remember how to do it anymore. 😅
I used to write tect based games for these calculators when I was in high school. I learned more about programming from that than I did in any computer class.
2011 high school math class- the calculators had games on them and the teacher would always yell at students not to play them because they drained the batteries
I graduated HS in ‘07, but the TI-83+ was our required graphing calculator as well (although we had to buy our own; they definitely were not provided to us). That RPG style GTA game in the video here looks incredibly similar to a game called Pimp Quest that was popular at my school.
I had a ti-84 color version in high school. I loaded pac man onto it and played it almost every day and teachers wouldn't really say anything to me. Calculator gaming is awesome
Back in high school our calculators couldnt play games, but we could type out words. I'd type out the lyrics to the Perfect Strangers theme song and leave it for the next person to be really confused.
i love making your own makeshift cables and adapters, makes me feel smart, and like an electronics manufacturer, but i am definetly not the latter, and the former is subjective
As an owner of a ti-83, thanks, i didn't know i could make my own graphlink cable.
As an owner of a ti-nspire it luckily uses mini usb so i dont have to use a wacky cable
@@reisenImperishableNight mini USB is pretty wacky.
If you ever loose the cable you can just buy a Nugget and it's bound to come with one
@@Zanpaa true that aswell but not as wacky as the cable used in the video
@@chadbranston9741 I'm sorry. But what?
I really should have been ready for James to say "I don't wanna pay $60 AUS for cables so let's make our own."
I know! never saw that coming
And the cable was the easiest part imo
after reading this comment I should've been ready, but I still wasn't
I knew it was coming lol. James could revive a dead test light, James can just make a cable :)
James must really hate Apple ...
My first foray into programming was writing BASIC programs for my calculator. I whipped up a simple number guessing game and was the coolest guy in the class for about a week.
I did that with python on mine
I used to love making games on my 84 in math, took away from the boredom of learning the same stuff two years in a row after being taken out of my honors classes for no reason
That's nothing. I made a periodic elements lookup program in basic and I was the cool guy for months in chem class lol.
we were doing qbasic back in 6th and 7th grade and I was the best at coding in my class. Nobody likes a nerd tho 😢
I remember improvising solver programs on tests because I was too lazy to do the work by hand and programming was just easier lol
Still can't believe this channel exists. It's like a damn fever dream
But one of those fever dreams that you actually enjoy.
It's like Dankpods' spirit animal came to life
people keep saying this; why? Is this James notorious for something?
@@lily_skyehe’s in many of the videos made by dankpods, probably one of the most popular tech channels.
@@lily_skye wait, how did you get here without knowing who James is?
Building your own cable is such a James thing to do, I love it
Thats a dank beat behind the tinkering. I love how it builds with your tooling around too. Perfect
Perhaps from Dankpods?
@@MattRio42 I dunno, whats the chances they know each other... /s
Oh god I didn't even realise that's what the music track was!
@@majomist 😂 it took me a minute too, as he was getting frustrated with the jack I was grooving along and then I actually listened to it and realised it was a custom, to the moment bit of playing
@@MattRio42 It didn't take long for me to also wonder if Dank recorded the drum loop in the background!
You can tell Wade made the music for this and I absolutely love it.
Who's Wade? Do you mean Dankmus or Dankpods?
@@deathsyth8888 Dankpods is Wade
If that's a live drum accompaniment then that's pretty innovative!
@@illustriouschin no way, if it was live accompaniment, you'd hear wade giggling at james' jerry rig insanity
wait he did?
James just making his own cable is so awesome. I like how he goes over how he did it instead of just glossing over it. Not a tutorial obviously but I appreciate how much work he puts into something as simple as a cable
I would have never guessed how tech savvy you were from Garbage Time. Keep it up man, these videos are both fascinating and hilarious.
Ahhha is this James from garbage time!
Hey, his genius is unparalleled in both channels.
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
If we don’t get a smart fridge gaming video Imma be upset mate.
He about to play GTA 5 on a Samsung smart fridge
If this man were to have a smart fridge it would be Atari powered
@@pyroratt San Andreas should be possible.
Toaster
Watching a guy build a cable to avoid buying something and then have it work feels like a miracle, good job mate!
As someone who used to code apps and games on TI-83 Plus in my high school days, glad to see someone raising awareness about graphic calculator gaming. :) Just so you know, there are many far better games available, many of which actually decent ports/clones of famous games, as well as some great games specifically made for this platform. Some were coded in TI-BASIC, but most were programmed in Z80 assembly.
I played a couple Metroid 2 clones. Not my favorite metroid but they were well done. Also some unplayable pacman game that scrolled the screen so it just turned in to mud.
I remember playing a version of final fantasy on my ti-83 plus, it took up just about all the memory on it, but it was worth it
best one by far was phoenix
@@Mister_Brown Kinda interesting to think about now, everybody at my school had phoenix and a couple others but I have no idea who was actually getting them onto the calculator to begin with, before they got transferred around via link cable.
0:30 “I don’t wanna pay that” literally explained my personality 💀
So glad to see you're making videos, always a must watch whenever a new video drops!
Oh, and in case anyone is curious, in Ireland we don't use these. We use €2 Classwiz Casio calculators, unfortunately we miss out on all this mischief.
0:34 I can’t explain it, but as someone who enjoys making cosplays and DIY fashion, I relate to the way James looked at the schematic and thought “This is expensive, but I have all those parts, so I can make that myself.” It’s so cool to see the same thought processes happen with completely different materials!
I installed flappy bird on people's calculators for $10 a pop when in high school😂 so this video was a blast from the past. Thanks for the memories lol I also had a janky homemade cable like yours lol
I live for this stuff man. Got a TI-83 Plus myself. I had a Link cable but I’m not sure what happened to it. May have to try this one out myself.
Whenever you upload, I can hear Wade chanting "JAMES. JAMES. JAMES. JAMES. JAMES." in my head 😅
The homebrew scene for the TI-84 is way bigger. I remember back in highschool i was playing portal and mega man during math class
Much better with the quiet background music! Looking forward to more uploads
I don't know what's better, the concept of the video, the fact he's making his own data cable or the fact the highest resolution of the video currently is 360p
The backing music does _so much_ to help fill space. Thank you for putting some in!
I'm digging the background music! So cool that James has a channel! It's really cool to see him work his magic. Keep up the good work, man!
I'm fairly certain that that is wade on the drums, sounds like his setup
@@coreyw7934 It's gotta be right? James fixes his nuggets, so Wade makes background music for his channel. Seems fair.
I had a TI-84 in high school that I still use to this day , and it still has all the games I loaded onto it back then.
God this is amazing! I wish this was a channel when I was in highschool! I would have loved this
The Z80 microprocessors in those calculators is the same as the gameboy. In fact you can emulate gameboy games on it. It is more tricky, but totally doable. You can also hook up headphones or a speaker to the jack at the bottom. You can even play piano, music, and grayscale movies on them. No much of a movie given the limitations, but still. There may be a way around the storage limit with a library called USB8x, but I never actually did that.
I started programming on these calculators. That's where I get my username.
Can it play bad apple?
Ok
I love how James can mod basically anything
Hey love this. I taught myself ti-basic so I could make simple games on my ti-83 instead of paying attention in math class. If you had a computer and the link cable you could make games in z80 assembly, but as I did not I made all my games in ti-basic using the keyboard on the ti-83. Took forever to type anything.
Yo dude that's so cool! That must've been one hell of a pain to do though
You could make games in machine code on the calculator by writing in hex. Sounds painful and time-consuming but certainly possible :)
Dude, that's awesome!
I remember my brother putting Pokemon yellow on a graphing calculator like 12 or so years ago. It still blows me away!
Looking forward to seeing your next projects! Btw, did Wade make that background music for you? If those, twas awfully Dank of him!
The Wolfenstein 3D "port" is the best game for the Ti-83+ in my opinion. Plays very similarly to the original game. There's also a version of Doom that isn't as good, but still impressive.
I'm 100% sure that the background drumming is Wade.
I'm glad I found this channel. As a Russian engineer, I relate to your type of engineering
I couldn't help but hear Wade going "no, James, it's broken, stop, it's over" just like with the broken voltage tester.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, and the cat at the end *chefs kiss*
I'm impressed by his skill at cutting, splicing and soldering wires.
(Did not expect the cat at the end)
I absolutely love your channel James! Much love!
James is like the old man with all the knowledge
Hold on, is the drum loop in the background recorded by Wade/Dank? It sure sounds like it!
i can see the differences between dank and jame's channels become more apparent. jame is developing into a unique youtuber in his own right. love you jame!
I literally just sat down to have lunch and was actively looking for something to watch when this upload popped up. Ol' mate James coming in clutch.
It's dank pods but in red
Man this takes me back to middle school when they had a massive surplus of these things collecting dust in boxes and they all came in that clear blue color that for some reason i really liked as a kid. Looking back I'm mad I didn't grab one to keep. While it is handy that most phones today have calculators preinstalled a weird part of me misses handling one of these.
I realized today growing up this was who I wanted to be.
my school had cables so of course we all had games on our calculators, loved playing bomberman
Frank looks kinda different or is it just me?
me = Wait... which James is this?
James = *creates Frankenstein cable for TI Calculator from many E-corpses
me = ah... that James. The Magpie Savior James
thank you for the cat at the end
i'm very fascinated by the engineering of the cable to do the transfers. love the videos already james :D
Love the cat cameo at the end of every vid
Back in the 80's and 90's the teachers guarded those Texas instruments calculators with their lives.
I know James is a pro and knows what he's doing, but watching him solder with his fingers so close was a bit of a "pucker moment" 😅
This is a really good channel for a beginner electrician like me who is still learning things thanks a lot for the tricks you showed
Honestly would love a TI calculator but nobody seems to have one over here
2:04 I'm not even kidding, I just looked at my watch and it's actually 5:26 AM. What are the odds of that?
the dank expanded universe
It's like a GTA IV expansion.
0:07 They still make brand new TI-83 plus models to this day as a budget option
If your budget is 90 bucks
1:01 nice drum solo lol
1:57 that boot up sound bring back SO MUCH NOSTALGIA
I used a TI-82 because it was cheaper and basically identical to the 83 but I remember using the 83 in school constantly, they had them locked away because people would steal them if they didn't account for every single one. We had to sign each one out. I still have at least 3 of these in a drawer in the garage, all dead (except the TI-82 comically)
Ah this brings back so many good memories! I had a TI-86 which even had the option of loading external programs in assembly, i had full fledged port of Super Mario for Gameboy and Sega Columns on it, mindblowing
I used to make games and sell them with a friend. Having the link cable in school made you a legend. Lol.
I love how the text based GTA programmer loved GTA so much he didn't feel the need to spell gangsta right. Because it says "gansta"
Maybe a typo, maybe he had only heard the word and didn't realize it should have the word "gang" in it, because he lives in a utopian \ gated community that has no OG's and everyone picks up their dog's poop and there are cherubs flying around shooting people with dopamine arrows, and poor people are pixelated, so as to not disturb the caviar.
More like this please, I just love the random chaos when you're building stuff.
Ah, beautiful, reminds me of school days too. I had a TI-89 Titanium, though-fancy! No, actually, same same, but different.
I only played three games on it: "Tetrics" (Tetris clone, obviously), "Bomberdude" (Bomberman) and "Mr. Worm" (Snake clone, but with arbitrary turns instead of just 90 degrees).
In secondary school we used TI-84s with exam mode, which when turned on would completely wipe your program storage and with it the progress I had in the 2d platformer version of portal
I used to love those calculators in school. A friend at the time learned how, and taught me how, to code games into the calculator and play them. So this brings back memories, though we never played GTA LOL and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t remember how to do it anymore. 😅
Dude your videos are great! You and Wade are going to build a RUclips empire!
I used to write tect based games for these calculators when I was in high school. I learned more about programming from that than I did in any computer class.
As an owner of ever ti version ever, thanks for your video. It was funny and very nostalgic for me.
I sprung for a Ti-89 in high school, but now I need to track down a transparent blue 83 just cause it's cool. Thanks James!
I appreciate that you now have music in the background - Especially as you got Wade to make it.
What an amazing channel I stumbled upon. That level of tinkering is something I dream about being able to do.
Why do I feel like the background music is made by Dank..?
2011 high school math class- the calculators had games on them and the teacher would always yell at students not to play them because they drained the batteries
That Win98 startup sound awakened long-lost memories...
This channel is the panicle of human engineering.
James you do some quality content, electronic gadgets and cars are my favorite things. Keep up the good work my dude.
I graduated HS in ‘07, but the TI-83+ was our required graphing calculator as well (although we had to buy our own; they definitely were not provided to us). That RPG style GTA game in the video here looks incredibly similar to a game called Pimp Quest that was popular at my school.
I do enjoy that Wade is playing the drums as background music.
bet thats dank pods in the backround playin
I had a ti-84 color version in high school. I loaded pac man onto it and played it almost every day and teachers wouldn't really say anything to me. Calculator gaming is awesome
0:35 "NO JAMES, this way too much engineering! You're really running with this?"
My favourite thing a friend got on my school calculator was Doom. I think it was the Ti-84, though.
One of the best TI-83 games I played back in the day was a version of drug wars. Top notch
Today I learned my vice has multiple functions, one being desk weight
I absolutely love how simple his channel name is, it's just James Channel
I can't help but just say it in a very simple emotionless robotic voice.
Didn’t fully realize this was James until I saw him make a makeshift data cable
The Toshiba flash screen to windows 98 made me chuckle out loud. Perfect
Back in high school our calculators couldnt play games, but we could type out words. I'd type out the lyrics to the Perfect Strangers theme song and leave it for the next person to be really confused.
I used to write programs for the TI-86, 83, and others way back when I was in high school and collage. But they were mostly timer programs.
i love making your own makeshift cables and adapters, makes me feel smart, and like an electronics manufacturer, but i am definetly not the latter, and the former is subjective
Finally, I have been waiting for a new upload. Glad to see you back Mr. James.
god, the memories. Myself and some friends made so many garbage text adventures on our TI-83+ in high school lol
I spent a ton of time playing Digimon on TI-83 back in the day. Shout out to whoever made that game, you got me through some boring ass days
"In Touch with Tomorrow" to the Win98 loading screen killed me.
Man that Windows 98 startup sound really took me back...
Phoenix was the best game on TI-83 PLUS. You could also play super Mario.
Making your own cable is a huge flex.
I watched almost this entire thing without realizing this was DankJames