Wii DVD/Wiikey Fusion/WODE + GC Portable Discussion

[gtmtnbiker]

If I were in your shoes, the way I would try to figure things out would be to use a logic analyzer in two scenarios:

1. Wii playing a GC game via SunDriver
2. GC playing game via the GC DVD drive.

Put the probes on the data & signal lines in both scenarios. For the data lines, the data should be the same except for the beginning part which might be slightly different because they're different hardware. At least this would help you confirm the data lines ordering.

[Ashen]

Sounds like a pretty good plan. Just need to get my hands on a logic analyzer now... do you think the saleae would be sufficient for what I need to accomplish? here are the specs:

Speedy 24MHz
Logic samples each channel at up to 24M times per second. A large fraction of practical, real world applications run at less than 10MHz, and Logic is ideal for these.

8 Channels
Logic has 8 inputs -- it can monitor 8 different digital signals at once. For many modern microcontroller-based designs, this is plenty.

10 billion samples
Logic can save as many as 10B samples, letting you to capture even the most elusive events. No more dealing with frustratingly small sample buffers.

Voltage range
Logic accepts voltages from -.5V to 5.25V, and has standard CMOS thresholds of .8V for logic low, 2.0V for logic high. Input impedance is approximately 1MΩ paralleled by 10pF (see more specs)

I know 8 channels is not as many as I will need but could I split the analysis up?

[Ashen]

This is interesting to me. On my voltage comparison that I punched into excel look how much more closely things match up when DID0-7 on the Wii are reversed. hmmmm....
Seems things match up alot better when swapped, specifically the pins sensitive to disc cover status.

[emu_kidid]

worth a shot

[Ashen]

Soooo..... last attempt at switching DIDo-7 around was fail also... just to keep everyone up to speed.

Came across another post of enterthehatrix's on modretro today:

http://forums.modretro.com/posting.php? ... 36&p=53812

You can actually replace the gamecubes drive with the Wii's drive. The firmware for the drives is nearly identical, you just need a way of communicating the two (not difficult if you have the tools) However, for portable purposes the size would be too big since it pretty much requires an FPGA to do the talking.

SD Gecko runs in memory card port. That ports bandwidth and speed is too low to support most commercial games.

Now please keep in mind my ignorance of electronics and programming but this makes me wonder if the cpld on the sundriver could be reprogrammed to do exactly what we want it to? Could the sundriver firmware package possibly be de-compiled so that we wouldnt have to start from scratch? How hard are cpld's to program for? I'm going to try and educate myself a bit on the subject, and see what I can do with this firmware pack.

Edit: Alternatively if it turns out its not possible to reprogram the cpld on the sundriver. Could a chip be placed between to sundriver and GC to translate the calls? Kinda like the first revisions of the exi hdd adapter where a ps2 modchip was used.

[emu_kidid]

Ashen, I'm not sure where EnterTheHatrix is gathering his info from, but the interface (code/signal wise) is exactly the same, just that we haven't got the PINs proper yet. I will write up some homebrew when I have mine connected to try and get some things debugged.

[Ashen]

Sounds good man, I'll be ordering my Saleae as soon as I get the cash for it, so some mysteries should unravel themselves then I hope.

[enterthehatrix]

Hi guys,

Firstly, I can be a douchbag, but generally I'm OK as long as you don't do something to piss me off. I hold grudges forever.

Ashen, I'm not sure where EnterTheHatrix is gathering his info from, but the interface (code/signal wise) is exactly the same, just that we haven't got the PINs proper yet. I will write up some homebrew when I have mine connected to try and get some things debugged.

You're right. I just wanted to discourage them because 1. I was in a pissy mood because of how I was treated that day for offering my help, 2. I wanted to be the only person who could offer portable gamecubes with slim drives.

Ultimately I don't care anymore. I'm out of the portable gamecube business for now. It's just not profitable anymore, so I'll help out where I can.

I did happen to have a pin map, I just have to get my old computer down from the loft and get it for you guys. (I've got all kinds of shit on there, like N64 eagle design for PAL consoles, controller designs, etc. Let me know if anyone wants them) . I believe the only thing that needed to be modified was eject as the system just didn't like starting without a disc and it didn't like you removing the disc (red screen of death). Basically, I just had to turn the console on, put the disc in, turn the console off, and turn it back on. Not practical but it was the best I could do. There might be an underlying cause but I'm not sure what it could be. Hopefully you guys can fix that though.

[liquitt]

N64 eagle designs, yes!

[enterthehatrix]

Ashen, unfortunately the guy who gave me the Wii pinout hasn't been around much since I got it, but I can try to get some more info. I'd suspect the Data lines D0-D7 should be in the same order still, but then again anything is possible.. I'm going to give it a try at wiring it up later this week, but I'll start with the earliest diagram we have and go from there.

I believe I did some trial and error. I just breadboarded the pins and systematically changed them around.

N64 eagle designs, yes!

I should add that I never actually built one as it's double sided design, so it may not work.

[emu_kidid]

I believe there is something weird with the eject. When we built a dvd replacement, it was working in homebrew but not on the IPL because it performed a reset too quickly or something odd. I wonder if you can power on the sundriver after the cube has had a chance to boot up, or if you can put a switch on the lidswitch pin?

[liquitt]

N64 eagle designs, yes!

I should add that I never actually built one as it's double sided design, so it may not work.

sounds like i'll have to try it

[Ashen]

Haha, wow. This is certainly good news. Welcome to the discussion enterthehatrix. You guys all must be aussie's or brits huh? All the good stuff always transpires while I'm sleeping...

[enterthehatrix]

I believe there is something weird with the eject. When we built a dvd replacement, it was working in homebrew but not on the IPL because it performed a reset too quickly or something odd. I wonder if you can power on the sundriver after the cube has had a chance to boot up, or if you can put a switch on the lidswitch pin?

That might explain the problems I had.

Haha, wow. This is certainly good news. Welcome to the discussion enterthehatrix. You guys all must be aussie's or brits huh? All the good stuff always transpires while I'm sleeping...

Brit.

[liquitt]

Haha, wow. This is certainly good news. Welcome to the discussion enterthehatrix. You guys all must be aussie's or brits huh? All the good stuff always transpires while I'm sleeping...

Jerkmany

[Ashen]

Well after 2 days of spending most of my minimal free time wiring up another ribbon cable to go from the Wii to the sundriver/disc drive for testing purposes I've finally been successful. Not sure why the first 2 I did went so easily and why I had such trouble with this one. At any rate I have continuity on all pins, no bridging, ect, ect, double triple and quadruple checked all connections to make sure. Both the DD & the Sundriver boot up fine and load up the GC game in the disc channel. The funny thing is that I get "an unknown error has occurred" message after I boot into a game and I'm not really sure why (error does not occur if i boot the bootloader of the sundriver only when booting an actual GC game). It seems like it happens only when the 8 Bidirectional lines are active as I let the Wii sit there for about an hour on the "home screen" just to see if it would error out without booting into a game and it didn't. My wires are kind of long, anyone think this could be a latency issue? Thats what I'm leaning towards atm. Going to try shortening them up a bit later when I have a chance.

[emu_kidid]

is the game perhaps in the wrong region? have you tried the same game on the DD and the Sundriver?

[Ashen]

Yep, same game on sundriver and in DD (twilight princess). Sun is set to correct region. Both boot to warning screen, I press "A" and nintendo logo shows then i get the error. Makes me think its latency because it only seemingly errors out when time sensitive data is being transferred. I'll find out later I guess, off work in 5hrs. Need to get this working proper so I can play the pinswapping game on the GC and see where i get.

[emu_kidid]

yeah, that really makes it sound like a latency issue

[Ashen]

Probably... My wires are close to 17in long. I'm hoping this is all it is anyway.

[emu_kidid]

wow yeah that's some long wires! :p

[Ashen]

O.K... So today I did a bit more mucking about with my Wii setup with a sundriver hooked up. Seemingly it is a latency issue or a bad connection issue that I'm dealing with. Had TP boot to varying points in the game today before erroring out. The big find of the day has been that pins 32, 31 and 30 seemingly do nothing as TP booted into the game numerous times without them connected. Pin 29 (eject) needs to be connected in order for game recognition in the disc channel. I disconnected this pin and forced it low by running it to ground and this also seemingly works. At this point in my testing something occured and the sundriver wont boot now with my testing wires hooked up ( works fine with reg ribbon cable ). Had to go
To work at that point unfortunately so ill post more when i get home.

[emu_kidid]

nice progress Ashen! I want to get a board which has the ribbon cable connector going out to large solder-able pads :p

[Ashen]

Yea. That would be really nice. I may order a few soon to make this much much easier. Plus some new ribbon cables too.

[emu_kidid]

oh, do such boards exist?