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Kawaii – A Keychain-Sized Nintendo Wii
- grishka 2y agoFeels like the logical next step would be to ditch the stock motherboard altogether and make a custom one that you transfer the chips onto.
- nsteel 2y agoThat's https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/nintendo-vegas.5052/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/nintendo-vegas... I don't think it's worth the huge amount of effort extra compared to a simple trim.
- pryelluw 2y agoThis is just fantastic. I wonder how small older consoles can be these days while still maintaining full hardware compatibility.
- yieldcrv 2y agovery, could make an adapter dongle for anything requiring pins
- spondylosaurus 2y agoThe PS2 Ultra Slim is a fun one: https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/ps2-ultra-slim.5077/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/ps2-ultra-slim... And it still has the original controller/memory card ports!
- whalesalad 2y agowith FPGA's you can have 100 consoles in one. https://misteraddons.com/ https://misteraddons.com/
- pryelluw 2y agoThough I might say that’s cheating, it is a welcome solution
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoYou 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 2y agoSee the R36S clones from China https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006152991376.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006152991376.html
- jsheard 2y agoIf we're counting emulation they can get even smaller than that, practicality be damned. https://www.funkey-project.com https://www.funkey-project.com
- pryelluw 2y agoI already own a miyoo with the emus though I meant something that replicates the original hardware and can run the actual game cartridges/ISOs
- userbinator 2y agoA NES SoC would fit easily within the area of a microSD card containing all ROMs ever published for it, and the embedded controller in the latter would still have a few orders of magnitude more transistors and be faster than it.
- bonney_io 2y agoIt's crazy that we could now build a Wii that's self-contained within the sensor bar...
- Sparkyte 2y agoDon't give Nintendo any more ideas. :P
- cushpush 2y agoInstead of a sensor bar you can use two burning candles.
- tomtheelder 2y agoYou can what now?
- mattnewton 2y agothe "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 2y agoI 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.
- resters 2y agoMaking 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 2y agoNintendo has been doing this ... forever? The switch is ancient tech, and was outdated the moment it was released.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoSwitch 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 2y agoWhich is correct. Plus a Wii game with 4k texture packs will look better than any HD remake
- klodolph 2y agoI am deeply unimpressed with most of the 4K texture packs out there. I see a lot of this: https://twitter.com/letofski/status/982947652072488962 https://twitter.com/letofski/status/982947652072488962
- andrepd 2y agoSame. Just rendering at 1080p / 4k is good enough to give most titles a nicer shine though :)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- segasaturn 2y ago
- bscphil 2y agoSo 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?
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoThere'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.
- sspiff 2y agoIt 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.
- yincrash 2y agoCheck 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 https://github.com/loopj/short-stack
- lhnz 2y agoIs this something you'd need to download and install ROMs to use?
- thenewnewguy 2y agoYou could rip Wii games that you own the physical disk for.
- skeaker 2y agoNo need to download if you've got physical copies. A hacked Wii (which is simple to set up nowadays) can easily dump your games to a usable legal ROM.
- latexr 2y agoUsing Nintendo’s branding in the box seems ill-advised. That’s giving Nintendo more fodder for the eventual lawsuit.
- notum 2y agoIsn't this using Nintendo hardware as well? I thought that was the point of these minification projects.
- numpad0 2y agoDoesn'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 2y agoThis is why juries must be instructed on nullification. It's The People's protection against money's use of criminal lawfare.
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoHistorically, it's also been very useful when you want to murder a black person and get away with it in front of an all-white Southern jury. Nullification is no more inherently righteous than a butcher knife.
- parl_match 2y agoI'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 2y agoThe 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- frickinLasers 2y agoHave you tried https://www.xometry.com/ https://www.xometry.com/ ? They have a network of vetted shops who bid on jobs when otherwise unoccupied.
- augasur 2y agoHi, I have ordered in the past from JLC3dp[1] both metal printed parts and aluminum anodized CNC machined parts. I was happy with the quality and the pricing was a lot better than my local CNC companies. [1] https://jlc3dp.com https://jlc3dp.com
- hatsunearu 2y agoThe "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.6293/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/thundervolt.62... That is pretty insane.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoIR losses? Never heard that one
- 0l 2y agoI believe he means I²R losses in resistive elements
- mikepurvis 2y agoWhich would reduce heat and therefore make it easier to cool in a small form factor.
- hatsunearu 2y agoThe heat dissipated on traces is significant, but not that significant.
- NavinF 2y agoNo I think he literally means IR losses. ie voltage droop V=IR Modern VRMs also reduce output voltage when the CPU draws more current. That way when the CPU later draws less current, the voltage doesn't inductively spike up and damage the CPU. Overclockers call this LLC (load line calibration), but don't google that because electrical engineers don't use that term and most articles and reddit threads explain this ass-backwards. Google "Active Voltage Positioning" instead to find correct documentation. If your VRM is close to the chip, voltage droop will be ~0 and LLC can be ~0. This allows you to undervolt more and save power without instability. This is probably why most server CPUs have voltage conversion inside the chip (FIVR, Fully integrated voltage regulators)
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoThe Wii has got be the most hacked (literally!) console ever.
- anthk 2y agoNot even close. That would be the Play Station or the Play Station 2.
- pessimizer 2y agoDon't forget the Dreamcast. It got hacked on more than it got played.
- klik99 2y agoIt was def the dreamcast - the first model didn't require any hardware, just a burned CD-ROM. It's demise and Segas departure from consoles is blamed on the amount of piracy. A real shame, because it had some great games
- bpye 2y agoThe Dreamcast GPU was also really neat. It was tile based and could do order independent transparency!
- jyrkesh 2y agoOne thing I was found interesting about Dreamcast piracy was that everyone was burning them onto 700 MB CD-Rs. But the retail games were actually pressed onto 1GB GD-ROMs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD-ROM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD-ROM For a lot of games, it totally didn't matter (shoutout Ikaruga, 38 MBs! https://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2023/03/the-worlds-smallest-dreamcast-games.html https://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2023/03/the-worlds-sm...) But for games that took advantage of the extra 300 MBs, pirates had to use all these tricks to get the game down to a CD-R size. They'd compress assets, compress or sometimes rip out the FMVs...I think they might have even split some games across multiple CDs. That's why DRM cracks me up, the pirates will always figure a way around it one way or the other. (Especially in today's day and age where the live service model is so effective. I'd weep for the AAA single-player game, but I can't remember the last one I played and enjoyed. They've been dead for a long time. Long live the indie single-player game.)
- VyseofArcadia 2y agoDoes it count if you need to plug it into an external dock to play?
- Neywiny 2y agoI'm thinking similarly. But you don't need GameCube controllers to use a wii. I think that's all the dock adds.
- HanayamaTriplet 2y agoYou 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.
- prmoustache 2y agoBasically they cheated.
- ivanbakel 2y agoThe 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 2y agoThat'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.
- Mogzol 2y agoThe point of this project is more about squeezing the Wii into the smallest possible footprint rather than making it convenient to use. If you wanted something similar with ports integrated though, check out the GC Nano (which despite looking like a Gamecube has Wii internals), or Short Stack. GC Nano: https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/gc-nano-the-worlds-smallest-gamecube.5697/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/gc-nano-the-wo... Short Stack: https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/short-stack-the-worlds-smallest-wii.6288/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/short-stack-th...
- enragedcacti 2y agoIn 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_smallest_gamecube_gc_nano/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamecube/comments/13u8km5/worlds_sm...
- redundantly 2y agoThank you. I was confused by the renders on the page.
- maxglute 2y agoSeems... large? I was expecting something substantially smaller than a flip foldable phone.
- Nursie 2y agoThat's not the Kawaii though, a little under halfway down the linked article, there's a size comparison between the GC Nano and the Kawaii - https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/kawaii.6474/ https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/kawaii.6474/
- Izkata 2y agoThe base is the same size, still quite large for being called "keychain-sized".
- remram 2y agoWallet-sized, I guess. 60x60x16mm, so it is 20% smaller than a credit card (in surface area)
- skeaker 2y agoIt's about the size of just the screen of a GBA. It's shorter than your smartphone. You could absolutely hang that from a keychain at that size, even if it wouldn't really make sense to.
- GrantMoyer 2y agoFor 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 2y agoThere should be an ongoing contest to see who can produce the smallest functional miniaturisations of Nintendo Wii and other consoles. For science!
- IAmPym 2y agoIt's not called the Kawii?
- efilife 2y agoWhy Kawii? Kawaii is japanese for cute
- bigstrat2003 2y agoBecause then it would be a better pun on "Wii". I also thought that "kawaii" was kind of a missed opportunity, personally. I would've gone for "kawaii" or something.
- glandium 2y agoI would have gone with Kawawii, which would sound like Fujimori Shinjo's かわうぃーねー
- efilife 2y agoWhy am I downvoted for asking a question ffs, reddit mentality
- Bartkusa 2y agoI would’ve chosen “Key-wii”.
- sam_perez 2y agoThe name is so close to being truly perfect, but I guess being just a little bit off is a perk here?
- chefandy 2y agoIt's cute, but personally I'd have gone for WiiChain or Nintendo Wee.
- hencoappel 2y agoNot WeeWii?
- chefandy 2y agoSolid option!
- th4tg41 2y agoI’m a complete sucker for retrogaming stuff and I. Want. That.
- jhatemyjob 2y agoIs there anyone out there that will make a GC Nano for a fee? Don't have time / skillz to do this myself but I want one
- prmoustache 2y agoI would say that it is just a bad idea for a start unless you plan to use wireless controllers. With cable connected one you are just looking for a console that would be dragged left and right every time you pull a bit with the controller.
- jhatemyjob 2y agoThis is an insane response. This does not concern me at all and has nothing to do with what I said.
- Razengan 2y ago+99 points for the name
- clemiclemen 2y agoThis is very impressive but I think Short-Stack [1] is a more impressive project because it is a fully fonctionnal Wii (as in, it works on its own as you would expect from a regular Wii) compared to this one where it needs other accessories to be able to play. [1]: https://github.com/loopj/short-stack https://github.com/loopj/short-stack previously discussed 3 months ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071826
- jonathanyc 2y ago> fully fonctionnal Wii (as in, it works on its own as you would expect from a regular Wii) compared to this one where it needs other accessories to be able to play. I don’t believe the Wii you linked includes an IR bar, which is what your statement led me to expect.
- alexkim97qaw 2y ago[dead]
- windowshopping 2y agoHow can they make a Nintendo-labeled product like this without being sued?
- LZ_Khan 2y agoKind of mad it's not called Kawa-wii