First Gamecube Portable - The PortaCube [Done!]

[Ashen]

Or.. you can be the first to test Swiss as the wkf flash..give me a few days to prepare

Wait.... What!?

[LOCtronicz]

......????

[emu_kidid]

sorry, I was writing from my phone. What I mean is I can make Swiss the first that boots off of the Wiikey Fusion. So you start the cube and that's what'll boot. Which also means it'll take FAT formatted SD cards right off the bat, no swapping needed. I have my WKF cube I'm willing to prototype it on, it's just a matter of writing a bootloader for it which is a few minutes work.

[_Nold_]

Sounds awesome! but i guess copatibility will stay the same atm?! Would love to play the starwars games on it but i'm willing to test your swiss build, too.

[pr0ton]

Swiss WKF-boot, wow. I thought when selecting WKF (or Wode) in Swiss you can view the .gcm files that are on the WKF SD-card. So that means games will work from the Swiss compatibility list and eventually with working audiostreaming, but maybe it is working entirely different .

[_Nold_]

But i guess we don't need this f***ing wbfs anymore... gc iso support under linux really sucks.. hey would be really great to get this running.. then i could call my gcp swiss-cube or something like that xD

[Ashen]

sorry, I was writing from my phone. What I mean is I can make Swiss the first that boots off of the Wiikey Fusion. So you start the cube and that's what'll boot. Which also means it'll take FAT formatted SD cards right off the bat, no swapping needed. I have my WKF cube I'm willing to prototype it on, it's just a matter of writing a bootloader for it which is a few minutes work.

Do you mean that we will be able to flash Swiss to the Wiikey Fusion itself instead of their crappy menu? Oh gawd man, you're my hero Emu.

[emu_kidid]

yes Ashen that's what I mean, just looking into it now, might have something in the next few days

[emu_kidid]

Successfully flashed a custom "firmware" file with a test.dol instead of the Wiikey Fusion menu to my Wiikey Fusion which resulted in a "non working" bootable chip, but it's a case of getting the flash file into the proper way that the chip is expecting it. Luckily I successfully flashed it back to the 1.5 firmware via my flashing code, so now it's just a matter of puting together that Swiss bootable flash ISO properly to how the Wiikey Fusion wants it to be setup (which I'm looking at now, might get it right tomorrow).

[LOCtronicz]

But wait a minute... That would mean we would use the swiss compatibility right??? Can swiss play all gamecube games like the wiikey normally can?? You couldn't by chance make it to autoboot into the image straight after you power it on??? Is that even possible???

Non the less it would be fantastic to have a different bootloader on the chip

[emu_kidid]

Yes, the plan is to get it booting straight away when you start up the chip. It'd have the same compatibility as the wiikey has already.

[LOCtronicz]

I actually meant it starting straight into the iso at bootup. So you would then not need to scroll through the gamecube menu and select the disc image.

How will it work with the sd card slot on the wiikey then? or would that become useless and would you load via a sd gecko on slot A or B??

I actually thought of using a viper gc to bybass the gamecube bios all together and having it auto boot the wiikey fusion. Would that be possible? I notice the viper gc needs a real discdrive to function properly. So no idea how that would work....


Awesome stuff though you always bring life to GC scene

[emu_kidid]

I actually meant it starting straight into the iso at bootup. So you would then not need to scroll through the gamecube menu and select the disc image.

Oh yes, that's definitely possible. The apploader is executed automatically when the disc is sensed so soon as you hit that wiikey fusion switch it'll just interrupt the IPL and boot it but this takes a bit more crafting in the ISO so I won't do it initially.

How will it work with the sd card slot on the wiikey then? or would that become useless and would you load via a sd gecko on slot A or B??

In Swiss when you select "Wiikey Fusion" it uses the Wiikey Fusion SD card slot but you could also use whatever else Swiss supports too (pointless though in this case).

I actually thought of using a viper gc to bybass the gamecube bios all together and having it auto boot the wiikey fusion. Would that be possible? I notice the viper gc needs a real discdrive to function properly. So no idea how that would work....

You can't do this as the Viper will want a real disc drive that it already knows about and can patch, the Qoob behaves the same too (but at least on the Qoob you can hold Y and not init the drive but go to the menu, or flash the Qoob with Swiss as the BIOS and that'd take care of skipping the IPL)

Also, _Nold_ sorry about the thread hijacking/off topic, I'll make one in the Gamecube section for this

[_Nold_]

So to come back to topic i just bougth another Gamecube.. but this time it's DOL-001!
So i hope everything will work now.. and since i can make a smaller cut, it will fit much better into the case

Here is a pic of the case so far: download/file.php?mode=view&id=596

i like it pretty much ^^ but will have to do a lot more on it :/
next step would be the shoulder buttons... as i said i did a cut into the case for them.. but now i don't know if i should bend them to the inside or outside :/

[emu_kidid]

that is looking very nice, I wish I could do just as good! Your C-Stick is upside down btw

[_Nold_]

Thanks man

Your C-Stick is upside down btw

yea, i know xD but i only did realize it after putting them in and i was too lazy to take them apart again ^^

[Ashen]

Progress looks pretty nice Nold! That case is smaller than I initially thought. To bad about your luck with motherboards so far, hopefully this one will work out.

[Joeyjoe9876]

might be a little late, but you can use the reset button on the gamecube to navigate the wiikey fusion menu. with firmware 1.0 it wasn't recognizing the controller either until I upgraded. pressing the button moves through the menu, and holding it selects the game. doubt you actually need this now though, because of the swiss booting and all that :p

Project is looking great so far!

[_Nold_]

might be a little late, but you can use the reset button on the gamecube to navigate the wiikey fusion menu. with firmware 1.0 it wasn't recognizing the controller either until I upgraded. pressing the button moves through the menu, and holding it selects the game. doubt you actually need this now though, because of the swiss booting and all that :p

Project is looking great so far!

Lol.. yea little late but thanks ^^
But update wouldn't help, since swiss is based on wkf-1.5, too..

New cube is on it's way, in the meantime i'm training my putty and painting skills
I'm building a plug-n-play disk-drive replacement with WKF ^^

[_Nold_]

Ok, new Cube arrived ^^
And it works with WKF, too

I'll trim it at the weekend.. it'll become something between AlmostWTF and Maximum Safe Cut ^^ because i want to keep the first two rows of the Disk Drive adapter and the transistors for the Memorycard slots...

So i hope to get this running tomorow.. which me luck

[_Nold_]

Sooo..

New Cube is trimmed down... but it dosn't work :/
CPU/GPU/RAM are getting warm but there is no composite signal.. don't know why.. pin 7 should be fine for PAL.. no short on the voltages, too...

[Ashen]

This may sound silly. But do you have video ground hooked up? Everything else looks fine to me, and if the chips are getting hot the board is working, so thats a good thing.

[Joeyjoe9876]

Don't know how many times I thought something wasn't working because I didn't have ground wired up

[_Nold_]

This may sound silly. But do you have video ground hooked up? Everything else looks fine to me, and if the chips are getting hot the board is working, so thats a good thing.

Yea, it is hooked up

[kel01]

The composite line on PAL GCs needs a 220uf electrolytic capacitor in series ( positive side of the cap towards the console ) and a 75 ohm resistor connected to ground.

If you have a spare GC composite cable that you don't need then you could take apart the plug that goes into the console and rob the little ready made PCB from it.

Give it a try and see if it helps.