The "WiiBoy", first ever Wii Portable.

[palmertech]

I am going to first define a portable as "not a laptop", so this is indeed the first WiiP.

It is going to be as small as humanly possible for a WiiP with no missing features. That includes all 4 GC controller ports! I plan on making one after this with a 2.5" laptop drive instead of a disc drive, but I want to be able to have this one play GC games; Then it will also be the smallest GCp!

Here is my discussion thread if you are interested, not really a worklog, there is nothing in it that is not here: http://forums.modretro.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=284" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here are the pics I took a few days back, I have made a wee bit of progress, but I am going to make progress pretty fast, since the case work is coming along swell.

Here is the first pic, sorry for the flash, could not be bothered to figure out how to turn it off:



Here is the second, only difference is a GC controller placed on top to use as a point of reference.


Any tips/feedback/input/useless posts you wanna throw here? Feel free!

[Axaj]

Great job so far, but what are you going to do for controls?

[jleemero]

Great job so far, but what are you going to do for controls?

If I recall, he's eliminating traditional Wiimote control, simply because so many games are capable of taking advantage of the Gamecube Controller.

Surely, of course, it will still be possible to use a Wiimote, if need be.

[dragonhead]

will be neat.

[tom61]

It is going to be as small as humanly possible for a WiiP with no missing features. That includes all 4 GC controller ports! I plan on making one after this with a 2.5" laptop drive instead of a disc drive, but I want to be able to have this one play GC games; Then it will also be the smallest GCp!

GC games couldn't be loaded from harddisk last I heard. Something about the IOS for GC games turning off all Wii hardware, including USB. I also seem to recall that Wii games don't like the disc drive not attached. Perhaps these have been taken care of, though, as the Wii homebrew scene is moving fairly fast.

[totokan]

Never name a portable the WiiP. It's too depressing. Nice job so far, though!

[palmertech]

It is going to be as small as humanly possible for a WiiP with no missing features. That includes all 4 GC controller ports! I plan on making one after this with a 2.5" laptop drive instead of a disc drive, but I want to be able to have this one play GC games; Then it will also be the smallest GCp!

GC games couldn't be loaded from harddisk last I heard. Something about the IOS for GC games turning off all Wii hardware, including USB. I also seem to recall that Wii games don't like the disc drive not attached. Perhaps these have been taken care of, though, as the Wii homebrew scene is moving fairly fast.

Precisely. This one can play GC games, the next will only be for Wii games. And I have a flatmii to plug into the disc drive slot, it is a very small chip, and tricks the wii into thinking the drive is there.

[Zero_D]

Gah! I was planning on building something just like this when my "portablizing skillz" matured.

It looks great so far though, keep up the good work because this seems very interesting indeed.

[Axaj]

Great job so far, but what are you going to do for controls?

If I recall, he's eliminating traditional Wiimote control, simply because so many games are capable of taking advantage of the Gamecube Controller.

Surely, of course, it will still be possible to use a Wiimote, if need be.

How will the menu be navigated?

[tom61]

Great job so far, but what are you going to do for controls?

If I recall, he's eliminating traditional Wiimote control, simply because so many games are capable of taking advantage of the Gamecube Controller.

Surely, of course, it will still be possible to use a Wiimote, if need be.

How will the menu be navigated?

BootMii can add a menu before the main one would come up that is navigable with the GameCube controller.

[zenloc]

Sounds like a great idea!! but just as tom61 said you can't play gamecube games of the hdd since the usb port is disabled in gamecube mode.

How would you load gamecube games without the discdrive?

[palmertech]

Sounds like a great idea!! but just as tom61 said you can't play gamecube games of the hdd since the usb port is disabled in gamecube mode.

How would you load gamecube games without the discdrive?

Well, this one has a disc drive, and integrated GC controller. This is really being made as a GCp that also happens to play some Wii games. For my next one, I am gonna ditch the disc drive and just use a USB HDD, and I know that it will be unable to play GC games, so it will be a "real" WiiP.

So the goal is to first make the worlds smallest WiiP with ALL features intact (This one), then make a second that is scaled down in features and size.

[Diminuendo]

two things; make some sort of stand for the thing to stand up for wii useage, and make it so the gamecube controller can disconnect, some games will not allow you to use the wiimote if a controller is plugged into the 1st GC port, (you only need to worry about the red wire, disconnect that and the controller is, as far as the console is concerned, unpulgged)

[palmertech]

two things; make some sort of stand for the thing to stand up for wii useage, and make it so the gamecube controller can disconnect, some games will not allow you to use the wiimote if a controller is plugged into the 1st GC port, (you only need to worry about the red wire, disconnect that and the controller is, as far as the console is concerned, unpulgged)

Thanks for the heads up, never even thought of that.

And yes, it will have a stand.

[snowpenguin]

I would put your switch on the data line, not power, or if at all possible, switch both. Even though you unplug power, the controller may still deliver unwanted electrical noise, so if you unplug data it may still draw a minute voltage but you'll have no noise. Switching power and data would be better though.