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Short Stack: World’s smallest Nintendo Wii
- mmaniac 2y agoInteresting choice of name.
- ZaoLahma 2y agoCould have called it a wee wii though.
- germandiago 2y agoI am always amazed by hardware people. These things are not trivial at all. Way more difficult than software in my experience.
- rafaelgoncalves 2y agoyeah, 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.
- arjvik 2y agoCode Golf but IRL?
- beckthompson 2y agoWii 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 2y agoMy 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 2y agoNote: 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoJust 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 2y agoHow 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 2y agoFunny 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.5052/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/nintendo-vegas...
- xcdzvyn 2y agoIs 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 2y agoShip of Wiiseus
- pathartl 2y agoAs 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 https://github.com/Redherring32/TinyTendo
- userbinator 2y agoHow does a typical smartphone SoC compare to the Wii in terms of processing power? Would one of those running an emulator be even smaller?
- dathery 2y agoHere'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/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/ps-hanami.6279...
- 9dev 2y agoWoah. 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 2y agoSimilar project for an (also portable) xbox 360 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-2dgSjljn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-2dgSjljn4 (in French)
- avar 2y agoI 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoPurely for aesthetics! It wouldn’t be the same without that iconic glowing disc slot.
- Nevermark 2y agoIf 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 2y agoThe 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 2y agoIt's a lost opportunity that you didn't repurpose the CD drive opening as a full-size SD card slot! Nicely done regardless.
- pavon 2y agoThat would have been fun, but the SD card slot is in the same place as on the original Wii (behind the front flap), which also makes sense.
- barfard 2y agoa wee wii
- dclowd9901 2y agoAw man I wish I had this when I went in and converted mine to HDMI output.
- brink 2y agoReminds me of this video where someone put a wii into a gameboy form factor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh1vNDcXZbA 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 2y agoThis 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-stack.6020/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/project-short-...
- m3kw9 2y agoInteresting can’t wait to see the worlds smallest Wii.
- pathartl 2y agoIt 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 2y agoSince 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 2y agoThat'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 2y agoHaven'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 2y agoThe 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 2y agoYou 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.
- Nuella19 2y ago[flagged]
- xtracto 2y agoThis reminds me a lot of BenHeck, back in the day he made all kind of cool custom portable XBox (original) and PS1 consoles
- ljf 2y agoIt was his mini Atari 2600 etc that blew me away originally - and his site just felt so 'fun'.
- bebopfunk 2y agoThe 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 2y agoNintendo already salivating at the thought of a cease and desist because well…Nintendo.
- BitNomad 2y agoI'm curious, why do you want to make the smallest Nintendo Wii?
- CalRobert 2y agoBecause it's wee!
- xandrius 2y agoI think it's an art following the ancient school of thought named "why not", which pushes innovation since forever.
- rawbot 2y agoIt's fun to hack something up (quite literally in this case).
- Retr0id 2y agoI'm more curious why you (apparently) don't want to.
- tiku 2y agoThere is this discman that only uses a corner of a disc. By using that tech it could be even smaller..
- VS1999 2y agoThis 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 2y agoM1/2/3 mac minis could have been very well cooled passively. MBA's are.
- SCUDhunter 2y agoWhat 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 2y agoMost 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 2y agoThe motherboard "trim" is crazy cool.
- waltbosz 2y agoThis YouTuber does similar mods where he shrinks consoles. This video is for Dreamcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJuqtHW2o9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJuqtHW2o9w He has also done ps2 and N64
- robmurrer 2y agoamazing build and repo. make hardware and software!
- alexb_ 2y agoDo 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 2y agoNot 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 2y agoHey 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 2y agoThe Wii proved grossly underpowered consoles can still be a lot of fun. This is the form factor it deserves!
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoIf your boss asks why you're reading about short stacks at work, I am delighted to report that it's also a poker term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms#S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms#S