[HN Gopher] Kawaii - A Keychain-Sized Nintendo Wii
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Kawaii - A Keychain-Sized Nintendo Wii
Author : realslimjd
Score : 291 points
Date : 2024-07-22 19:12 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bitbuilt.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (bitbuilt.net)
| pryelluw wrote:
| This is just fantastic. I wonder how small older consoles can be
| these days while still maintaining full hardware compatibility.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| very, could make an adapter dongle for anything requiring pins
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| The PS2 Ultra Slim is a fun one:
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/ps2-ultra-slim...
|
| And it still has the original controller/memory card ports!
| whalesalad wrote:
| with FPGA's you can have 100 consoles in one.
| https://misteraddons.com/
| pryelluw wrote:
| Though I might say that's cheating, it is a welcome solution
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| You would likely get into "full compatibility" lawyering very
| quickly. Many of the consoles have weirdo hardware components
| in some module or another that is still poorly understood.
| haunter wrote:
| See the R36S clones from China
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006152991376.html
| jsheard wrote:
| If we're counting emulation they can get even smaller than
| that, practicality be damned.
|
| https://www.funkey-project.com
| pryelluw wrote:
| I already own a miyoo with the emus though I meant something
| that replicates the original hardware and can run the actual
| game cartridges/ISOs
| bonney_io wrote:
| It's crazy that we could now build a Wii that's self-contained
| within the sensor bar...
| Sparkyte wrote:
| Don't give Nintendo any more ideas. :P
| mcphage wrote:
| Why not? That's a fantastic idea, and I'd love to see
| Nintendo do that.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| It's a running joke the internet has about Nintendo. They
| will run with ideas and sue you later.
| cushpush wrote:
| Instead of a sensor bar you can use two burning candles.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| You can what now?
| mattnewton wrote:
| the "sensor" is actually in the remote. The bar is just two
| infrared leds seperated by a known distance, that the
| infrared camera in the remote uses to figure out it's
| position.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| I play a bit of flightsim and our head tracking works the
| same way. Camera receives IR LED position for head
| movement axis, program does the interpretation of
| movement.
| ladberg wrote:
| The sensor bar isn't actually a sensor, just two IR
| blasters that the cameras on the wiimotes use for
| positioning.
|
| You can use any two sources of infrared light instead!
| chabons wrote:
| Before I knew this I had someone pull out their lighter
| and point the remote at it when our sensor bar died. Took
| me a little bit to figure it out.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The sensor bar is ACTUALLY not two IR blasters, but two
| sets of 5 commodity IR LEDs!
|
| https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-making-a-diy-wiibar
| przemub wrote:
| The sensor bar is passive - it's just two infrared diodes
| so the Wiimote can get an idea of its own position.
|
| So you can replace it with candles as they emite infrared
| light as well!
| bena wrote:
| The Wii isn't that huge to start with. You also have to figure
| the Wii unit houses full optical drive as well.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Wii+Teardown/812
|
| https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/ewv3yZPOujCRpKEj.hug...
|
| That's it. And they didn't include the controller ports and
| other bits. For instance, I don't think it has Bluetooth or
| WiFi antennas, so it can't connect to Wiimotes or a network.
|
| So if you wanted all of that back, it would be a little bigger.
| But not by much. Probably the size of the Game Boy Advance in
| the picture. If that.
|
| But if all you wanted was Smash Bros on a keychain, here you
| go.
| resters wrote:
| Making video games fun does not require anywhere near as much
| hardware as we typically use in modern systems. I look forward to
| an eventual return to fun video games.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Nintendo has been doing this ... forever? The switch is ancient
| tech, and was outdated the moment it was released.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Switch could definitely have used more oomph. Many frame rate
| drops in the Zelda games. Many emulators claim to have the
| superior experience with those games.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| Which is correct. Plus a Wii game with 4k texture packs
| will look better than any HD remake
| klodolph wrote:
| I am deeply unimpressed with most of the 4K texture packs
| out there. I see a lot of this:
|
| https://twitter.com/letofski/status/982947652072488962
| segasaturn wrote:
| Actually Nintendo consoles used to be powerhouses until
| recently. The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were all considered
| state-of-the-art in terms of performance. It wasn't until the
| Wii when they began cutting down on performance in favor of
| fun features like they had been doing in the handheld space.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Especially N64 - SGI indy in a small box. They did change
| the narrative after they couldn't or wouldn't compete on
| those numbers (rightfully so it turned out), however, they
| were always experimenting with controls and were highly
| influential in doing so.
|
| appropriate username, btw, but that console is for another
| topic!
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| Pretty sure the NES was designed to a price point first and
| foremost. Especially after the video game crash. Hence the
| dirt-cheap 6502 derivative in it.
| einr wrote:
| The NES -- as far as its basic hardware architecture --
| was not designed for a market where the video game crash
| had even _occurred._ It was designed for release in Japan
| in 1983 as the Famicom, undoubtedly the most powerful
| console in the market at the time -- a time where by the
| way I 'm not sure what else you would even put in a
| console other than a 6502 or Z80.
|
| If you wanted cheap above all, you could have gone for a
| plain 6502 or a cut-down variant (like the 6507 in the
| Atari VCS), but they also didn't do that -- the Ricoh
| 2A03 is a custom part that includes custom sound
| hardware.
| Laremere wrote:
| That doesn't match my recollection. The Gameboy is a early
| counter example: it was black and white during a time where
| the game gear had color, yet the Gameboy was far more
| popular. Also I believe the Xbox was more powerful than the
| GameCube.
| mejutoco wrote:
| I remember kids with the game gear. Hardly ever saw them
| playing because of the batteries. For a portable console
| I think it was a choice on battery life.
| tadbit wrote:
| The game gear was extremely lousy to use. Too small of a
| screen, ate through batteries incredibly quickly, the
| original, external battery pack (not included) was poorly
| made and didn't help that much either.
|
| And the game selection early on was pretty lousy too.
| Sonic was only fun for a while.
|
| People are doing amazing things with game gear hardware
| as of late, though. All of that addressed spectacularly.
| stavros wrote:
| And it only took thirty-five years!
| einr wrote:
| The Game Gear didn't come out until one and a half year
| later. It's easy to see how it wasn't even remotely
| practical to release a color handheld system in 1989, and
| it's easy to argue that it wasn't practical in 1990
| either, but Sega did it anyway.
|
| So when the Game Boy came out it was easily the most
| powerful handheld system on the market (admittedly by
| virtue of being essentially the only one worth
| mentioning)
| lapetitejort wrote:
| The Atari Lynx came out a few months after the Game Boy
| with a backlit color screen
| hansoolo wrote:
| I found my Gameboy recently, but I did not find my
| games... Sad times...
| callalex wrote:
| The game boy got almost 30hours out of 4xAA whereas the
| game gear got about an hour or two of life out of 6xAA. I
| hated that about the game gear and it meant I hardly ever
| got to play it.
| blkhp19 wrote:
| "recently" as in nearly 25 years ago
| to11mtm wrote:
| NES? Yes.
|
| SNES... Somewhat? I think there were tradeoffs here between
| that and the genesis; You got more colors and could get
| better sound out of the SNES... On the flip side people did
| -amazing- things with the YM2612 and for all the SNES RPG
| Soundtracks I love, they don't slap like the Streets of
| Rage series or Sanic.
|
| N64 had pretty good perf but the Cartridge format made it
| -very- expensive to do anything very fancy; this is one of
| the reasons that lots of folks feel PS1 had better looking
| games despite N64's superior specs.
|
| GameCube... Sits in a very weird spot IMO, but that whole
| generation was a bit Zany due to how everyone was
| experimenting with different 'paths to faster/better 3d'.
| Dreamcast had lots of 'special' stuff, GC was unique in
| it's own right, PS2's biggest stumble IIRC was too little
| ram for the GS...
|
| To me, the bigger 'paradigm shift' that Nintendo made with
| the Wii was preferring more COTS-y stuff versus more
| special custom things...
|
| NES had the Special Ricoh 6502 variant. SNES had the SPC.
| N64... TBH was mostly SGI based so possibly the exception.
| Gamecube had a custom GPU (Flipper)...
|
| Wii is for the most part an 'incremental' upgrade from GC
| Hardware, and the Switch uses a not-that-special Tegra
| AFAIK.
| ekianjo wrote:
| the Gamecube certainly not. it was on par with other
| consoles of the time but released later so nothing that you
| could call SOTA
| conradev wrote:
| "Yokoi said 'The Nintendo way of adapting technology is not to
| look for the state of the art but to utilize mature technology
| that can be mass-produced cheaply.' He articulated his
| philosophy of 'Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology' (Ku
| retaJi Shu noShui Ping Si Kao , Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shiko)
| (also translated as 'Lateral Thinking with Seasoned
| Technology'), in the book Yokoi Gunpei Game House."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Design_philosophy
| agumonkey wrote:
| Well said. Some ingredients that were in old games has vanished
| due to the post 2000 culture, but we can go back.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Some ingredients that were in old games has vanished due to
| the post 2000 culture
|
| Hmm, like what?
| agumonkey wrote:
| One factor (surprisingly I've seen this mentioned by a
| video game guy on youtube few years ago) is the disbelief
| made by non game visual art. Game boxes, booklets, they
| bootstraped the imagination. Handmade art was 100x more
| detailed than 8bit games yet we didn't care having a low
| res 8bit characters because we were already mentally in the
| world displayed on paper.
|
| I do sincerly miss the limited rendering aspect of old
| titles. The limitations gave ways to a distinct style, and
| kept the game a game, in a strange world. It also provided
| you with some surprises.. how did they manage to pull off
| some effect on a tiny 8 or 16bit machine. Hardware of today
| removes that wonder. There's less contrast.
| kchr wrote:
| The limitations of old game platforms didn't vanish, they
| are still used (and being re-discovered by new
| generations). One of my favorite games on this side of
| the new millennium is Celeste, for example.
|
| Some indie studios are even producing new games for GBA,
| GB, NES and other platforms from the 90s, sometimes
| including booklet and packaging!
| agumonkey wrote:
| Ah fine, I lost track of the indie space. I shall resume.
| solardev wrote:
| It wasn't clear from your post, but have you kept up with the
| PC indie scene of the last decade or so? There's a lot of great
| small gems on Steam these days that can run on old hardware (or
| the Deck).
|
| But apparently the golden age is ending, as big publishers this
| year and last canceled a lot of projects and closed a bunch of
| studios. Sad, but there's still a huge backlog of great titles
| to go through.
| ralusek wrote:
| Inscryption
|
| Subnautica
|
| Satisfactory
|
| Factorio
|
| Hollow Knight
|
| RE7
|
| Baba is You
|
| Baldur's Gate 3
|
| Elden Ring
|
| Dead Cells
|
| Hades
|
| Ori and the Will of the Wisp
|
| Disco Elysium
|
| Dishonored 1 & 2
|
| Orcs Must Die
|
| Planet Coaster
|
| Portal 1 & 2
|
| Read Dead Redemption 2
|
| Valheim
|
| I dont' know what you mean by "modern," but these were all
| games I enjoyed recently-ish, and I'm sure I forgot some.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| Off the top of my head I'd say to throw in Outer Wilds
| (wilds, not worlds), Tunic, The Riven remake, and The Talos
| Principle 1 & 2 as well.
| latexr wrote:
| Fun video games never went away. Look for games by indie
| developers instead of AAA titles.
| haunter wrote:
| There are many fun AAA titles, more than one can play
| latexr wrote:
| The conversation's context is fun games without needing the
| latest hardware.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| The majority of my indie titles run on a potato.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Many indie games use Unity and have terrible performance.
| Source: I have a potato (by which i mean i use the
| integrated graphics of an i7-56xx)
|
| It can run many games well, so it depends how much
| developers value performance.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| A lot of fun old AAA games run on potatoes. And there's
| so many of them that you won't have issues finding
| something new to you.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It's actually a golden age for fun video games, because we
| are swimming in new beautiful, engaging, original titles
| every year.
|
| Some things really take you by surprise as well.
|
| I never saw Inscryption, Disco Eliseum or Hades coming, and I
| think nobody did.
|
| And even oldish games still have great value. I still play
| LoL or Isaac, and they are as good as they were on day 1.
|
| Plus, you get the Switch then the Deck refreshed portable
| gaming experience. The latter made emulation so nice as well.
|
| With terrific communities, insane speed runners, devs coming
| up with crazy new concepts and hardware that never stop to
| get better, it's hard to complain except that with a busy
| life, you will see only 1% of those masterpieces.
| haunter wrote:
| The problem is when even Nintendo's own first party titles are
| struggling with the hardware. That wasn't that common with the
| Wii, 3DS, or previous consoles but very very very noticeable on
| Switch
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Super Mario 64 had abysmal performance for a title on the N64
| that wasn't even that complicated compared to things that
| would later release on the console.
|
| But in the 90s, when you got home with your very first device
| capable of rendering "real time" 3D graphics for $200, you
| didn't really care that "real time" meant 12fps at times. We
| used to have pretty low standards for framerate.
| scns wrote:
| One guy optimized Mario 64 to run at 60FPS:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rzYnXEQlE
| anthk wrote:
| Mario 64 on the N64 was build without -O2 flags. Maybe
| with -O0 or even -g. After a simple compiler switch, the
| speed skyrocketed.
| syndeo wrote:
| And from what I understand, it's not due to incompetence;
| rather, it's due to not yet having confidence that those
| optimizers wouldn't introduce bugs. The SDK and toolchain
| were very new; SM64's development itself parallels that
| of the dev toolchain.
|
| So, better safe than sorry, especially with a pack-in
| launch title.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| A story does not require a bunch of words either but there are
| a lot of great, long books. There are also great short stories.
|
| Same thing goes for games that demand high performance rigs.
| It's all about what you want in the end, and there's no single
| answer for what makes a game fun. Some people really like
| beautiful, realistic looking games with high resolutions and
| frame rates. To them that is fun.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Good point. Most of the games I have played in recent years
| have been indie titles. Sometimes they are CPU intensive but
| rarely GPU intensive.
|
| It feels like graphics in games have reached a sort of plateau
| now where the most visually realistic games are only marginally
| more realistic looking than something from nearly 10 years ago.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Ray tracing might be eye candy, but fast streaming from assets
| from SSD enables experiences not possible before (large scale
| open world, instant teleportation).
| bscphil wrote:
| So is this project (a) taking the real Wii parts and putting them
| on a smaller PCB, (b) a different design with a more efficient
| same-architecture CPU, or (c) an entirely new design that is
| emulating the Wii hardware? Can the device run the real Wii OS or
| is it running a replacement OS capable of launching Wii games?
| sspiff wrote:
| It is based on the Wii Omega trim, which is a cut down original
| Wii motherboard removing all the non essentials.
|
| Some components in this build are reconnected to the board
| using a flexible PCB connector, but the core is just a cut down
| OEM Wii board.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| There's a long history of people taking an original Wii
| motherboard and physically trimming the PCB with rotary tools
| (or a hacksaw) to put them in smaller enclosures, usually to
| make them portable.
| yincrash wrote:
| Check out the short stack GitHub for an overview of how a
| previous mod was done. Literally chopping up the motherboard to
| the bare minimum then adding back things with daughterboards
| https://github.com/loopj/short-stack
| lhnz wrote:
| Is this something you'd need to download and install ROMs to use?
| thenewnewguy wrote:
| You could rip Wii games that you own the physical disk for.
| latexr wrote:
| Using Nintendo's branding in the box seems ill-advised. That's
| giving Nintendo more fodder for the eventual lawsuit.
| notum wrote:
| Isn't this using Nintendo hardware as well? I thought that was
| the point of these minification projects.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Doesn't matter. Reselling a modified brand product can count
| as counterfeiting. Legal conditional checks don't always
| coincide with human instinctive one, law is code too after
| all.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| This is why juries must be instructed on nullification.
| It's The People's protection against money's use of
| criminal lawfare.
| talldayo wrote:
| Lawsuit to what? Their CAD files, the build instructions? The
| board shipped with the Nintendo Wii?
| shakna wrote:
| Reusing branding always opens you up to liability. There are
| a lot of angles that you wouldn't expect, that trademark can
| be used to attack you with. And Nintendo are very hostile to
| any and all uses.
| root_axis wrote:
| Use of Nintendo's trademarked branding.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Using the word "nintendo" on something intended to play any
| kind of games is trademark infringement. The Kawaii devs
| likely don't intend to confuse people, but if a consumer saw
| this product for sale they'd rightly assume it's a Nintendo
| product.
|
| Using a brand name like this just makes things easier when
| Nintendo attorneys barely have to roll out of bed when
| sending a cease and desist order.
|
| Just call it Kawaii and stay slightly under the radar. Sadly,
| Nintendo will probably come for you anyways.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| It might not work without the Nintendo logo.
| lawlessone wrote:
| very funny :)
| pininja wrote:
| I wonder if there's a reusable Nintendo logo they could extract
| from the Wii enclosure? It's incredible how upcyclable the Wii
| is.
| parl_match wrote:
| I'm looking for recommendations for a 30~50 run anodized aluminum
| case, in a similar size as the Kawaii. Does anyone have any
| recommendations? The quotes I'm getting are closer to $95/pc and
| that seems quite high.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| The price for a small-batch run is going to depend heavily upon
| how difficult it is to manufacture at small scale. If you got
| that $95 quote from a local shop, you can try asking them what
| you can do to make it cheaper. There might be some tricky
| features in your design that are jacking up the labor costs.
|
| The cheapest way to make a small-batch aluminum enclosure is
| probably to base it off an off-the-shelf extrusion stock. I'd
| go on McMaster and find some C-channel stock that fits my
| needs, then I'd design a base plate that nests inside the
| C-channel. If you're trying to go for an upscale, professional
| look, you can have the machine shop run a wire wheel over the
| C-channel before anodizing it.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| The "Thundervolt" reference in that post is a project where they
| cut up a Wii PCB to leave just the DRAM and the processors on the
| PCB, and then they slap an external DCDC board on top of that cut
| up PCB to provide power to it, while also undervolting it since
| you reduce the IR losses.
|
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/thundervolt.62...
|
| That is pretty insane.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| IR losses? Never heard that one
| 0l wrote:
| I believe he means I2R losses in resistive elements
| Nition wrote:
| Here's some more info on the motherboard and what can be
| trimmed off and/or replaced:
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/wii-motherboar...
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| The Wii has got be the most hacked (literally!) console ever.
| anthk wrote:
| Not even close. That would be the Play Station or the Play
| Station 2.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Does it count if you need to plug it into an external dock to
| play?
| Neywiny wrote:
| I'm thinking similarly. But you don't need GameCube controllers
| to use a wii. I think that's all the dock adds.
| HanayamaTriplet wrote:
| You can't use the base unit by itself - according to the
| specs from the link, the dock has the actual power input and
| A/V output connectors.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| The discussion in the forum points out that the Kawaii
| doesn't come with any wireless capabilities (they're all
| trimmed off the board), so unless the console is docked, you
| seemingly can't control it at all. Perhaps you could come up
| with a separate controller connector that mates with the
| plugs on the console without the rest of the dock.
| Neywiny wrote:
| That's fair. So then yeah I guess the dock is needed.
| Considering it didn't look that big, if I bought one of
| these I'd probably want it integrated instead.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| In case the scale renderings weren't illustrative, this is just
| how small the GC Nano is
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamecube/comments/13u8km5/worlds_sm...
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| For reference, 60mm is less than the width of even a compact
| smartphone, and 16mm is 1.5 to 2 times as thick. This thing is
| tiny.
|
| Hell, it has about the same footprint as a gamecube _disc_.
| Reason077 wrote:
| There should be an ongoing contest to see who can produce the
| smallest functional miniaturisations of Nintendo Wii and other
| consoles. For science!
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(page generated 2024-07-22 23:00 UTC)