[HN Gopher] Short Stack: World's smallest Nintendo Wii
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Short Stack: World's smallest Nintendo Wii
Author : jorde
Score : 557 points
Date : 2024-04-18 00:51 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| arjvik wrote:
| Code Golf but IRL?
| beckthompson wrote:
| Wii was my favorite console. So many fun games that you could
| play with the whole family! Wii sports resort is one of the best
| all time games
| dwayne_dibley wrote:
| My Wii has never left the prime location from under the TV
| since launch day - getting on for 20 years! Despite having
| switches and gaming PCs my kids now love the Wii, the balance
| board and wii sports are all that are played now, but they
| still see regular use.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Note: The synthetic rubber feet on that Wii will have turned
| to goop that stains everything it touches by now. I would get
| some isopropyl alcohol or turpentine and remove them
| entirely.
| deskamess wrote:
| I regret getting rid of it while moving to a new house. Even
| though the screen had turned green-ish it still worked. Had
| the newer Wiimotes, balance board and all that. Miss it
| terribly. The Switch is good but Switch Sports is not the
| same. No planes to fly, no mountains, Showdown, etc.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Just using the UI on the Wii is a simple pleasure even
| without the games.
|
| I am surprised there is not more HTPC frontends which
| duplicate the look and feel.
| jsheard wrote:
| How long before someone goes all the way by designing a
| completely custom motherboard and transplanting the key
| components onto it I wonder? It's been done for older systems but
| the BGA parts in the Wii would be a challenge.
| loopj wrote:
| Funny you should mention that! Some members of the BitBuilt
| community are working on this including the talented
| YveltalGriffin
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/nintendo-vegas...
| xcdzvyn wrote:
| Is this seen as any less of a "Wii" than a trimmed board?
| What if parts were replaced with newer, functionally
| identical ones?
|
| This is kind of a Wii ship of Theseus.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Ship of Wiiseus
| pathartl wrote:
| As a longtime observer of the scene, no. Creating the
| smallest board possible while maintaining original game
| compatibility are about the only metrics to stick to.
| Usually this boils down to keeping the CPU, GPU, NAND (if
| exists like the Wii), and most times the RAM.
|
| There are some nuts people out there like Redherring32 with
| his TinyTendo project that go above and beyond just putting
| the components on a new board. He designed the TinyTendo
| which requires cutting down the DIP-packaged CPU and PPU
| from the NES into a smaller package. These components were
| only produced for Nintendo systems of the era and are the
| special sauce for overall game compatiblity.
| https://github.com/Redherring32/TinyTendo
| userbinator wrote:
| How does a typical smartphone SoC compare to the Wii in terms
| of processing power? Would one of those running an emulator be
| even smaller?
| delecti wrote:
| It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the Wii's CPU
| was 32-bit, 729 MHz, and single-core, and its GPU was a 243
| MHz SoC. I briefly checked the Samsung Galaxy S lineup as a
| point of comparison, and it seems like the second one (from
| 2011) already smoked those specs. As for space, even without
| doing any modifications to the phone it's already about half
| the volume of this mini-Wii.
|
| Of course that's really just sidestepping the challenge of
| "how small can you get an actual Wii".
| rawbot wrote:
| You could 100% make a smaller fake "wii" by emulating it with
| a smartphone SoC. Mid-range phones can emulate Wii and
| Gamecube at 2x resolution.
|
| However, the intention of these miniature builds is to
| preserve the original device, just in tiny form. No emulation
| involved. As if it was an official product.
| pcwalton wrote:
| Well, the Wii GPU has 12 GFLOPS, while the Mali-G52 MP2 used
| in the Galaxy A14, the top selling Android phone of 2023, has
| 418.78 GFLOPS.
| wizardwes wrote:
| People have been running Dolphin on Nvidia Shields since the
| first one came out in 2015
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| People already do the strange things, like VSA100 monsters:
|
| https://www.zxc64.com/vsa100_based/0_62911_strange_god_agp_2...
| dathery wrote:
| Here's a similar project with a PlayStation 1 if people like this
| kind of thing: https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/ps-
| hanami.6279...
| 9dev wrote:
| Woah. I did not expect someone to gleefully saw the original
| mainboard in a bunch of fitting parts, the solder the severed
| links back together. That's some next level stuff. Amazing!
| jgtrosh wrote:
| Similar project for an (also portable) xbox 360
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-2dgSjljn4 (in French)
| avar wrote:
| I wonder if doing this will result in subtle bugs simply
| because the effective length of the copper traces is being
| altered, which changes the transmission time.
| abeisgreat wrote:
| This is the unspoken secret of all these mods. They're built
| to be built, not played, so if there are subtle instabilities
| introduced which may impact practical gameplay they will
| likely never be discovered because the final creation just
| sits unused on a shelf.
| phinnaeus wrote:
| This was messing with my head for a minute, I thought maybe they
| had figured out a way to use mini CDs (like the GameCube) to make
| that tiny disc drive functional, but it appears to just be
| decorative.
| loopj wrote:
| Purely for aesthetics! It wouldn't be the same without that
| iconic glowing disc slot.
| Nevermark wrote:
| If you were selling these, the "goodies" would surely need a
| couple minified disks, for purely aesthetic reasons!
|
| Along with an "authentic" mini power "brick" wrapped around
| the middle of the USB-C cord. :)
|
| Very nice!
| amlib wrote:
| The disc could then just be a caddy for a micro SD memory
| card, which when inserted on the disc slot would promptly
| launch a game stored in there.
|
| Selecting games from a virtual library never has the same
| kick as when you insert a cartridge or a dis[ck] into a
| machine and have it boot from that.
|
| Edit: I also realized you may as well cut out the memory
| card and just have each "fake" disc encode (perhaps
| optically) a little ID which the machine could read
| (perhaps a cheap camera) and associate to a game already
| stored in the machine's internal memory.
| arghwhat wrote:
| It's a lost opportunity that you didn't repurpose the CD
| drive opening as a full-size SD card slot!
|
| Nicely done regardless.
| mrighele wrote:
| Mini-CD would be too big for this size, wouldn't they ?
| Something similar to a credit card would fit the bill and could
| look gorgeous.
|
| The issue of course would be that there aren't cards of that
| format that can store the amount of data required, but maybe
| with a bit of fantasy a micro-sd card could be embedded in it.
| kevindamm wrote:
| Yeah a minidisc is 64mm, I couldn't find the exact
| measurement in the README and can only dig so far on my
| mobile but even just eyeballing it and measuring a deck of
| cards it would be a lil too big.
| froyolobro wrote:
| ok phew I was super confused.
| stuaxo wrote:
| That would be amazing, someone has to do this in the future.
| barfard wrote:
| a wee wii
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Aw man I wish I had this when I went in and converted mine to
| HDMI output.
| brink wrote:
| Reminds me of this video where someone put a wii into a gameboy
| form factor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh1vNDcXZbA
|
| It's so cool that you can just chop up the motherboard like that
| and it still works.
| shlubbert wrote:
| This is damn impressive. There's also a slightly more detailed
| build log in this forum thread:
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/project-short-...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Interesting can't wait to see the worlds smallest Wii.
| pathartl wrote:
| It was great seeing this in person at MGC this year. Every year
| the Bitbuilt guys seem to somehow make the Wii smaller and
| smaller. It's insanity.
| userbinator wrote:
| _Since the GameCube controller connectors on the original Wii
| wouldn 't fit cleanly on a build of this size, I use TRRS
| headphone connectors instead._
|
| Word of caution: many electronics are not designed for the shorts
| between connections which occur if you hot-plug one of those.
| oritron wrote:
| That's a very good point to keep in mind. I've seen that go
| wrong!
|
| There are lots of connectors out there where the pins never
| short. The tricky thing is finding ones that can be plugged and
| unplugged often, while still being small. I've misused USB B
| connectors for this purpose; it's not common enough for someone
| to have the wrong cable to plug in, yet very easy to solder and
| to get the parts. There are also some circular connectors (M5,
| M6) where the connector on the device is decently small and the
| bulk tends to be on the cable side.
|
| With a small crimper there are even more compact options which
| still handle many mating cycles, like Samtec's various Tiger
| Eye product lines.
| PrivateButts wrote:
| Haven't touched a GameCube or a Wii in a long time, but didn't
| those things not support hot plugging GC controllers in
| general?
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| The stock GC controller ports place the contacts next to each
| other, rather than at different depths, so they won't connect
| controller pins to the wrong port pins or short pins together
| when partially plugged. (I do suspect the ground and/or power
| pins may be longer than data lines, to connect first.)
| rawbot wrote:
| You can hotplug them, but when plugging them, there's no
| short risk, as all pins have their individual connectors. A
| barrel TRRS headphone connector can short, because the first
| "pin", the tip, goes through every single connector. Imagine
| this was power, and one of the connectors it went through was
| ground.
| loopj wrote:
| A design change which didn't quite make it into the final
| release only enables the 5V and 3V3 lines on the GameCube
| controller when the tip-switch on the TRRS jack is activated.
|
| The short-proof approach/strategy would be to use small
| magnetic pogo connectors, but I really wanted to maintain
| compatibility with the GC Nano!
| rawbot wrote:
| Good to know this was already considered!
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Because the TRRS plug is part of a custom dongle, you can plug
| the dongle into the jack first, and then plug the controller
| into the dongle after, and eliminate that short risk
| xtracto wrote:
| This reminds me a lot of BenHeck, back in the day he made all
| kind of cool custom portable XBox (original) and PS1 consoles
| ljf wrote:
| It was his mini Atari 2600 etc that blew me away originally -
| and his site just felt so 'fun'.
| bebopfunk wrote:
| The benheck forums are the reason I work in tech. It was a
| great community. A lot of the people working on these
| projects today are former members. The most notable was
| Palmer Luckey who went on to found Oculus.
| isuckatcoding wrote:
| Nintendo already salivating at the thought of a cease and desist
| because well...Nintendo.
| BitNomad wrote:
| I'm curious, why do you want to make the smallest Nintendo Wii?
| CalRobert wrote:
| Because it's wee!
| xandrius wrote:
| I think it's an art following the ancient school of thought
| named "why not", which pushes innovation since forever.
| rawbot wrote:
| It's fun to hack something up (quite literally in this case).
| Retr0id wrote:
| I'm more curious why you (apparently) _don 't_ want to.
| mmaniac wrote:
| Interesting choice of name.
| ZaoLahma wrote:
| Could have called it a wee wii though.
| tiku wrote:
| There is this discman that only uses a corner of a disc. By using
| that tech it could be even smaller..
| egeozcan wrote:
| This one?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AowJGns66_4
| rawbot wrote:
| This Wii build doesn't even have an optical disk. If you read
| the article, it loads up games over microSD.
| tiku wrote:
| Is it really a Wii without the optical disk :)
| VS1999 wrote:
| This makes me miss the days when computers were ~12 watts and
| (basically) passively cooled. This would not be possible on any
| newer system. I'm also not counting the 1" fan on the back of the
| wii which was replaced by a heatsink.
| SSLy wrote:
| M1/2/3 mac minis could have been very well cooled passively.
| MBA's are.
| SCUDhunter wrote:
| What you sir need is a Dell Wyse 5070. Passively cooled, four
| 64 bit cores, you can put up to 32Gb memory inside, two DP
| outputs and an M.2 SATA socket. 4-6 watts at idle and around 16
| watts at full chat.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Most RPi style single-board computers (SBC) are passively
| cooled. Some perform better with a heatsink, some heatsinks
| come with a fan, but (for most use cases) it's not really
| needed.
|
| Passive cooling went away during the 80s/90s homecomputer -> PC
| transition. But modern tech has brought it back - provided you
| choose form factor & performance expectations appropriately
| (even though modern SBCs are crazy fast compared to Amiga or
| Atari ST era machines).
| 127 wrote:
| The motherboard "trim" is crazy cool.
| germandiago wrote:
| I am always amazed by hardware people. These things are not
| trivial at all. Way more difficult than software in my
| experience.
| rafaelgoncalves wrote:
| yeah, i find all a incredible work. Right from the design and
| building, so many moving parts and variables it looks like some
| kind o "alien" work to me :D, amazing.
| waltbosz wrote:
| This YouTuber does similar mods where he shrinks consoles. This
| video is for Dreamcast
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJuqtHW2o9w He has also done ps2
| and N64
| robmurrer wrote:
| amazing build and repo. make hardware and software!
| alexb_ wrote:
| Do the custom controller connectors introduce any amount of input
| lag? Would love to try and make one of these for Melee
| tournaments if it doesn't.
| jmb99 wrote:
| Not really sure how it could? It's just effectively adding ~5"
| of wire and a differently shaped connector. Unless you're
| worried about the fraction of a nanosecond the extra wire will
| add...
| noneeeed wrote:
| Hey James, glad to see you've been putting all your free time to
| excellent use :D
|
| This looks amazing, I love all the attention to detail.
| deadbabe wrote:
| The Wii proved grossly underpowered consoles can still be a lot
| of fun. This is the form factor it deserves!
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