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Unmodifiable early boot rom is very common. The Wii also had it. The Wii also had a bug in it that they fixed in a later hardware version. See http://wiibrew.org/wiki/BootMi...

The reason for it not being EEPROM is simple. They don't want anyone to modify it, as it's the start of the secure boot process. Allowing modifications on it would defeat the goal of this ROM.

Sorry, but this is programmer idiocy not the fault of the language. The correct function to use is memcmp(). Which will catch this problem. strncmp() relies on the c-string being NULL terminated, and as such is a KNOWN AND DOCUMENTED BEHAVIOR. Anyone using strncmp() in security code needs to be removed from the keyboard before they hurt themselves. (Or indeed others, right Nintendo?)

So it's very similar to the Nintendo Wii's crypto problem.
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Signin...

IOS is also the name of the Wii's operating system, developed by Nintendo and BroadOn.

Half of it is akin to the difference between CD-ROM Mode 1 and Mode 2 Form 1. They hold the same amount of data but have slightly different physical sector layouts, with certain fields moved before or after the data.

In addition, data on a DVD is XOR'd with a linear feedback shift register whose seed changes every sector. This isn't encryption but instead a way to "whiten" the spectrum. That's where the Burst Cutting Area (the "barcode") on a GameCube disc comes in. It encodes not only constants used to compute the LFSR seed but also the logical position of six more holes in the lead-in.

Wii discs are exactly the same, except the entire disc content is encrypted, hashed, and combined with hashes of nearby sectors, and then the hash at the top of the tree is digitally signed with RSA.

Sources: GameCube, Wii

GameCube and Wii discs don't use UDF or this "outside-in" recording method. The physical format is identical to DVD; what's changed is the logical sector format. http://debugmo.de/2008/11/anat... has an analysis of the GameCube format; Wii is similar.

The filesystem is also completely proprietary. http://hitmen.c02.at/files/yag... has a description of GameCube discs; http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii_Di... has Wii discs. (Wii discs are similar to GameCube, but it supports multiple partitions and offsets are multiples of 4 in order to address a full 8 GB dual-layer DVD using 32-bit values.)

The reason why most people think GameCube and Wii discs are written "backwards" is because the disc mastering tools deliberately pad the beginning of the disc with filler data in order to push the actual data towards the outer edge of the disc. This is because the CAV drives used in GameCube and Wii are able to read data faster if they're closer to the outer edge.

Softmodded wii's can run emulators. Gamecube controllers are much better than the wiimote.

Wii Homebrew

The wii is still the most played console in our house.

Double-woosh on you.

Cisco does not have a monopoly on the letters I, O, and S in sequence. Whee!

We have excelent DOS emulators, excelent PS2, Wii, etc emulators, but Windows remains the one place we do not have a good emulator.

Of course you do. It's called VirtualBox. Just as you need a copy of iOS to run a Wii game,* you need a copy of Windows to run a Windows game. The difference is that since the Wii Menu 3 days, Nintendo has been shipping a copy of the Wii system software on every disc and on the Wii Shop servers, and Wii emulators for PC can use this copy to reconstruct an operating system for the game to use. Games for Windows, on the other hand, don't ship with a copy of Windows. It's as if you tried running a Wii game with Mini instead of iOS.

* Or for that matter an iPad game or a Cisco router, but that's beside the point.

We have excelent DOS emulators, excelent PS2, Wii, etc emulators, but Windows remains the one place we do not have a good emulator.

Of course you do. It's called VirtualBox. Just as you need a copy of iOS to run a Wii game,* you need a copy of Windows to run a Windows game. The difference is that since the Wii Menu 3 days, Nintendo has been shipping a copy of the Wii system software on every disc and on the Wii Shop servers, and Wii emulators for PC can use this copy to reconstruct an operating system for the game to use. Games for Windows, on the other hand, don't ship with a copy of Windows. It's as if you tried running a Wii game with Mini instead of iOS.

* Or for that matter an iPad game or a Cisco router, but that's beside the point.

point me to the cheaper device from Asia which runs iOS?

It's not a smartphone, but Nintendo's Wii game console is a device that runs (a different) iOS. Cisco routers run (yet another) iOS too, and many of those appear to be made in China. Even Apple smartphones, which are "designed by Apple in California" and run the iOS you're thinking of, are still put together in China.

I don't know, check the specs of the receiver against the controller, i'm sure some basic searching will enable you to find similar details about the ps3 controller, or connecting it and debugging it yourself to identify the details.

And [Cisco's] routers run IOS.

So do Nintendo's Wii game consoles.

Or can you show statistics that gaming HTPCs have become popular, as opposed to an extreme niche?

I do this.

That makes you one out of seven billion. One out of seven billion is not a market. Even 150,000 as FunkSoulBrother surmised three years ago isn't a market compared to 25 million consoles. There have to be a critical mass of HTPC owners before major PC game developers will spend the time=money to add features to their PC games to target HTPC owners, and it appears some people are dead set against setting up an HTPC.

Wonder if I could do Game cube to? I never looked into it.

To play your GameCube game discs in Dolphin, you'd first need a homebrew-enabled Wii console to dump your games. I've read that most PC DVD-ROM drives can't read the sector format used by GameCube and Wii discs, which differs slightly from DVD.

no one is using cartridges for new games.

Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and PlayStation Vita use cartridges. Sony tried discs in PSP, but it added too much weight and dragged down the battery life.

Yeah, I know I'm a small market. I'm happy with the set up, even though I get black bars on the TV. I don't have a Wii, but oh well. It isn't like I play the games. It isn't hooked up to the TV. I was thinking more the PS2 games. Good call on the portable. I think cartridge is best for portable, or download to unit. But cartridge most likely.

Or can you show statistics that gaming HTPCs have become popular, as opposed to an extreme niche?

I do this.

That makes you one out of seven billion. One out of seven billion is not a market. Even 150,000 as FunkSoulBrother surmised three years ago isn't a market compared to 25 million consoles. There have to be a critical mass of HTPC owners before major PC game developers will spend the time=money to add features to their PC games to target HTPC owners, and it appears some people are dead set against setting up an HTPC.

Wonder if I could do Game cube to? I never looked into it.

To play your GameCube game discs in Dolphin, you'd first need a homebrew-enabled Wii console to dump your games. I've read that most PC DVD-ROM drives can't read the sector format used by GameCube and Wii discs, which differs slightly from DVD.

no one is using cartridges for new games.

Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and PlayStation Vita use cartridges. Sony tried discs in PSP, but it added too much weight and dragged down the battery life.

what matters is that the [Surface RT tablets] will not load any OS not blessed by MS.

Nor will a PlayStation 3 console running firmware 3.21 or later run an operating system not blessed by the manufacturer. Nor will an Xbox 360. Nor will a device that runs Apple's iOS, or for that matter Nintendo's iOS, without questionably legal circumvention. There exist other devices that someone who wants to run free software can buy in the first place instead of a Microsoft product.

http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Main_Page

Wii homebrew still gets made, emulators get updated still. It's slowed down, but after we hack the Wii U, I imagine there will be a bunch of new stuff.

Stuff still gets made for the Xbox 360, the PS3.

Wouldn't even need to ask the question if you googled the various scenes.

Honestly, if the Wii's games catalogue is a result of "careful vetting", I dread to think what their vetting rejects.

See List of freeware Wii games by developers who do not meet Nintendo's qualifications.

Except for the small screen, no cellular wireless

Cellular comes with a fairly hefty monthly bill, making it a luxury that a lot of people in the North American market (which makes up three-fourths of the developed anglophone world) still can't afford. That's why the base model iPad, the base model iPhone (called the iPod touch), and the base model PS Vita still come without cellular.

Wii's just wee in the corner. [...] But you'll still be able to run your DOS apps!

If it weren't for Nintendo's lockdown, Wii would be able to run DOS apps too. There's a DOS PC emulator that can run on a jailbroken Wii.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii-Linux

Again, I'm going to have to ask, what kind of geek/nerd are you?

Already had Linux on my 3DS for roughly three months. That's a little more difficult but nowhere near as hard as you claim it to be.

Homebrew central for Wii is at http://www.wiibrew.org/. The first thing you'll need is the Homebrew channel, which is what lets you do everything. It's extremely unlikely to brick anything; it's been installed by hundreds of thousands of people without issue. The most risky thing you can do is installing BootMii, but only if you happen to lose power for the few seconds it writes to boot memory - Nintendo's official updater is far more likely to brick your Wii, and in fact is so bad the authors of BootMii wrote their own, much safer, update code. I recommend you install BootMii anyways, because you can use it to make an image of the flash memory in the Wii, which you can use to restore it to the state it was when you imaged it; emulators aren't going to do anything, but if you or your kids start tinkering with the internals (whether hacking for the sake of hacking or, uh, less legitimate reasons) it would be handy to be able to unbrick it if anything goes wrong. If you're worried about losing power, borrow a UPS while it's updating and you'll be fine.

You'll also need to keep an eye on the system updates. Every now and then Nintendo releases a new version of the system software that doesn't add any new features, but does try to disable homebrew. They tend to get cracked quickly (Team Twiizers say they have plenty of cracks they haven't told anyone about yet, so whenever one gets blocked they just pull out another), but until that happens you might not have access to your homebrew channel. I recommend you update to the latest version, then disable automatic update checking. This will prevent any potential game discs from trying to update your Wii and wiping things out, at least until games with future updates start appearing.

After you install the Homebrew Channel, the first thing you'll want to install is the Homebrew Browser. This tool automatically handles downloading and installing software to your Wii, so you don't have to constantly move the SD card between it and your computer every time you want to install or update something. You can also take a look at WiiBrew's list of homebrew to see what's available. Besides the emulators, some other things to check out are Super Mario War, Piero's Wiicross, ScummVM, source ports of many game engines (Doom, Quake, Descent, Ur-Quan Masters, etc.), WiiMC (a media player), and be sure to take a look at the featured homebrew. There's other quality homebrew there too, I recommend you just try out anything that looks good - it only takes a few minutes to download and install something to try it out.

I mentioned PSX and N64 emulators in my last post, but be warned they're not quite complete yet. They're functional, but not especially fast or compatible. Still, the Virtual Console proves N64 emulation is possible on the Wii, and the developers behind Wii64/WiiSX are very dedicated to their work, so I have no doubt they'll eventually be complete. Even now, many games such as Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy 8 are at least playable on the emulators.

BTW, I don't know how much into the Wii your boys got, but in case they lost interest because most of the games on it are shovelware, there are some gems mixed in with the crud. I can personally recommend Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (maybe not so much for the kids, that last one). Though being mostly a PC gamer myself, I can understand if they already tried all that stuff and just prefer the PC; still, I don't like to ignore a good game just because it's not on my favorite hardware.

Homebrew central for Wii is at http://www.wiibrew.org/. The first thing you'll need is the Homebrew channel, which is what lets you do everything. It's extremely unlikely to brick anything; it's been installed by hundreds of thousands of people without issue. The most risky thing you can do is installing BootMii, but only if you happen to lose power for the few seconds it writes to boot memory - Nintendo's official updater is far more likely to brick your Wii, and in fact is so bad the authors of BootMii wrote their own, much safer, update code. I recommend you install BootMii anyways, because you can use it to make an image of the flash memory in the Wii, which you can use to restore it to the state it was when you imaged it; emulators aren't going to do anything, but if you or your kids start tinkering with the internals (whether hacking for the sake of hacking or, uh, less legitimate reasons) it would be handy to be able to unbrick it if anything goes wrong. If you're worried about losing power, borrow a UPS while it's updating and you'll be fine.

You'll also need to keep an eye on the system updates. Every now and then Nintendo releases a new version of the system software that doesn't add any new features, but does try to disable homebrew. They tend to get cracked quickly (Team Twiizers say they have plenty of cracks they haven't told anyone about yet, so whenever one gets blocked they just pull out another), but until that happens you might not have access to your homebrew channel. I recommend you update to the latest version, then disable automatic update checking. This will prevent any potential game discs from trying to update your Wii and wiping things out, at least until games with future updates start appearing.

After you install the Homebrew Channel, the first thing you'll want to install is the Homebrew Browser. This tool automatically handles downloading and installing software to your Wii, so you don't have to constantly move the SD card between it and your computer every time you want to install or update something. You can also take a look at WiiBrew's list of homebrew to see what's available. Besides the emulators, some other things to check out are Super Mario War, Piero's Wiicross, ScummVM, source ports of many game engines (Doom, Quake, Descent, Ur-Quan Masters, etc.), WiiMC (a media player), and be sure to take a look at the featured homebrew. There's other quality homebrew there too, I recommend you just try out anything that looks good - it only takes a few minutes to download and install something to try it out.

I mentioned PSX and N64 emulators in my last post, but be warned they're not quite complete yet. They're functional, but not especially fast or compatible. Still, the Virtual Console proves N64 emulation is possible on the Wii, and the developers behind Wii64/WiiSX are very dedicated to their work, so I have no doubt they'll eventually be complete. Even now, many games such as Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy 8 are at least playable on the emulators.

BTW, I don't know how much into the Wii your boys got, but in case they lost interest because most of the games on it are shovelware, there are some gems mixed in with the crud. I can personally recommend Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (maybe not so much for the kids, that last one). Though being mostly a PC gamer myself, I can understand if they already tried all that stuff and just prefer the PC; still, I don't like to ignore a good game just because it's not on my favorite hardware.

Homebrew central for Wii is at http://www.wiibrew.org/. The first thing you'll need is the Homebrew channel, which is what lets you do everything. It's extremely unlikely to brick anything; it's been installed by hundreds of thousands of people without issue. The most risky thing you can do is installing BootMii, but only if you happen to lose power for the few seconds it writes to boot memory - Nintendo's official updater is far more likely to brick your Wii, and in fact is so bad the authors of BootMii wrote their own, much safer, update code. I recommend you install BootMii anyways, because you can use it to make an image of the flash memory in the Wii, which you can use to restore it to the state it was when you imaged it; emulators aren't going to do anything, but if you or your kids start tinkering with the internals (whether hacking for the sake of hacking or, uh, less legitimate reasons) it would be handy to be able to unbrick it if anything goes wrong. If you're worried about losing power, borrow a UPS while it's updating and you'll be fine.

You'll also need to keep an eye on the system updates. Every now and then Nintendo releases a new version of the system software that doesn't add any new features, but does try to disable homebrew. They tend to get cracked quickly (Team Twiizers say they have plenty of cracks they haven't told anyone about yet, so whenever one gets blocked they just pull out another), but until that happens you might not have access to your homebrew channel. I recommend you update to the latest version, then disable automatic update checking. This will prevent any potential game discs from trying to update your Wii and wiping things out, at least until games with future updates start appearing.

After you install the Homebrew Channel, the first thing you'll want to install is the Homebrew Browser. This tool automatically handles downloading and installing software to your Wii, so you don't have to constantly move the SD card between it and your computer every time you want to install or update something. You can also take a look at WiiBrew's list of homebrew to see what's available. Besides the emulators, some other things to check out are Super Mario War, Piero's Wiicross, ScummVM, source ports of many game engines (Doom, Quake, Descent, Ur-Quan Masters, etc.), WiiMC (a media player), and be sure to take a look at the featured homebrew. There's other quality homebrew there too, I recommend you just try out anything that looks good - it only takes a few minutes to download and install something to try it out.

I mentioned PSX and N64 emulators in my last post, but be warned they're not quite complete yet. They're functional, but not especially fast or compatible. Still, the Virtual Console proves N64 emulation is possible on the Wii, and the developers behind Wii64/WiiSX are very dedicated to their work, so I have no doubt they'll eventually be complete. Even now, many games such as Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy 8 are at least playable on the emulators.

BTW, I don't know how much into the Wii your boys got, but in case they lost interest because most of the games on it are shovelware, there are some gems mixed in with the crud. I can personally recommend Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (maybe not so much for the kids, that last one). Though being mostly a PC gamer myself, I can understand if they already tried all that stuff and just prefer the PC; still, I don't like to ignore a good game just because it's not on my favorite hardware.

Homebrew central for Wii is at http://www.wiibrew.org/. The first thing you'll need is the Homebrew channel, which is what lets you do everything. It's extremely unlikely to brick anything; it's been installed by hundreds of thousands of people without issue. The most risky thing you can do is installing BootMii, but only if you happen to lose power for the few seconds it writes to boot memory - Nintendo's official updater is far more likely to brick your Wii, and in fact is so bad the authors of BootMii wrote their own, much safer, update code. I recommend you install BootMii anyways, because you can use it to make an image of the flash memory in the Wii, which you can use to restore it to the state it was when you imaged it; emulators aren't going to do anything, but if you or your kids start tinkering with the internals (whether hacking for the sake of hacking or, uh, less legitimate reasons) it would be handy to be able to unbrick it if anything goes wrong. If you're worried about losing power, borrow a UPS while it's updating and you'll be fine.

You'll also need to keep an eye on the system updates. Every now and then Nintendo releases a new version of the system software that doesn't add any new features, but does try to disable homebrew. They tend to get cracked quickly (Team Twiizers say they have plenty of cracks they haven't told anyone about yet, so whenever one gets blocked they just pull out another), but until that happens you might not have access to your homebrew channel. I recommend you update to the latest version, then disable automatic update checking. This will prevent any potential game discs from trying to update your Wii and wiping things out, at least until games with future updates start appearing.

After you install the Homebrew Channel, the first thing you'll want to install is the Homebrew Browser. This tool automatically handles downloading and installing software to your Wii, so you don't have to constantly move the SD card between it and your computer every time you want to install or update something. You can also take a look at WiiBrew's list of homebrew to see what's available. Besides the emulators, some other things to check out are Super Mario War, Piero's Wiicross, ScummVM, source ports of many game engines (Doom, Quake, Descent, Ur-Quan Masters, etc.), WiiMC (a media player), and be sure to take a look at the featured homebrew. There's other quality homebrew there too, I recommend you just try out anything that looks good - it only takes a few minutes to download and install something to try it out.

I mentioned PSX and N64 emulators in my last post, but be warned they're not quite complete yet. They're functional, but not especially fast or compatible. Still, the Virtual Console proves N64 emulation is possible on the Wii, and the developers behind Wii64/WiiSX are very dedicated to their work, so I have no doubt they'll eventually be complete. Even now, many games such as Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy 8 are at least playable on the emulators.

BTW, I don't know how much into the Wii your boys got, but in case they lost interest because most of the games on it are shovelware, there are some gems mixed in with the crud. I can personally recommend Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (maybe not so much for the kids, that last one). Though being mostly a PC gamer myself, I can understand if they already tried all that stuff and just prefer the PC; still, I don't like to ignore a good game just because it's not on my favorite hardware.

Homebrew central for Wii is at http://www.wiibrew.org/. The first thing you'll need is the Homebrew channel, which is what lets you do everything. It's extremely unlikely to brick anything; it's been installed by hundreds of thousands of people without issue. The most risky thing you can do is installing BootMii, but only if you happen to lose power for the few seconds it writes to boot memory - Nintendo's official updater is far more likely to brick your Wii, and in fact is so bad the authors of BootMii wrote their own, much safer, update code. I recommend you install BootMii anyways, because you can use it to make an image of the flash memory in the Wii, which you can use to restore it to the state it was when you imaged it; emulators aren't going to do anything, but if you or your kids start tinkering with the internals (whether hacking for the sake of hacking or, uh, less legitimate reasons) it would be handy to be able to unbrick it if anything goes wrong. If you're worried about losing power, borrow a UPS while it's updating and you'll be fine.

You'll also need to keep an eye on the system updates. Every now and then Nintendo releases a new version of the system software that doesn't add any new features, but does try to disable homebrew. They tend to get cracked quickly (Team Twiizers say they have plenty of cracks they haven't told anyone about yet, so whenever one gets blocked they just pull out another), but until that happens you might not have access to your homebrew channel. I recommend you update to the latest version, then disable automatic update checking. This will prevent any potential game discs from trying to update your Wii and wiping things out, at least until games with future updates start appearing.

After you install the Homebrew Channel, the first thing you'll want to install is the Homebrew Browser. This tool automatically handles downloading and installing software to your Wii, so you don't have to constantly move the SD card between it and your computer every time you want to install or update something. You can also take a look at WiiBrew's list of homebrew to see what's available. Besides the emulators, some other things to check out are Super Mario War, Piero's Wiicross, ScummVM, source ports of many game engines (Doom, Quake, Descent, Ur-Quan Masters, etc.), WiiMC (a media player), and be sure to take a look at the featured homebrew. There's other quality homebrew there too, I recommend you just try out anything that looks good - it only takes a few minutes to download and install something to try it out.

I mentioned PSX and N64 emulators in my last post, but be warned they're not quite complete yet. They're functional, but not especially fast or compatible. Still, the Virtual Console proves N64 emulation is possible on the Wii, and the developers behind Wii64/WiiSX are very dedicated to their work, so I have no doubt they'll eventually be complete. Even now, many games such as Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy 8 are at least playable on the emulators.

BTW, I don't know how much into the Wii your boys got, but in case they lost interest because most of the games on it are shovelware, there are some gems mixed in with the crud. I can personally recommend Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (maybe not so much for the kids, that last one). Though being mostly a PC gamer myself, I can understand if they already tried all that stuff and just prefer the PC; still, I don't like to ignore a good game just because it's not on my favorite hardware.

I google Gecko OS and get a disc launching tool for the Wii game console.

Not out of the box it can't: DVDX

Or Nintendo's IOS.

IOS is actually what runs on Cisco Routers

I thought IOS was what ran on the CPU in the Wii console's northbridge.

IOS is actually what runs on Cisco Routers

I thought IOS was what ran on the CPU in the Wii console's northbridge.

I have it installed on my Nintendo Wii. You can read about and acquire the port here.

They apparently used the source of a DS port as a starting point.

All of these require homebrew enablement hacks.

Homebrew is a number of things:

- Dosbox. Running classic old DOS games on other hardware is phenomenal.
- Third-party web browsers that do a better job than the "included" browser. Most Opera ports to "closed system" consoles count as homebrew.
- Alternate OS. Sony's "OtherOS" linux implementation was a locked down, powerless mess that didn't give proper access to the video system. With the advent of homebrew now, actual, full-access Linux can be loaded to perform far better. I look forward to the day when I can slap in a hauppauge USB TV tuner and turn my PS3 into a MythTV backend when it's not running games.
- Emulators for dead systems. Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, Atari 7800, and onwards. This includes not just the questionable "archived roms", but actual homebrew games for those systems that are still being programmed.
- Third-party software apps such as media players, audio jukebox players, etc.

I find http://wiibrew.org/ to be very useful for wii Homebrew. The wii's main homebrew scene is completely against piracy. Their main goal is to allow you to do what you want on your wii, like play SNES, N64, NES, etc. games on your wii, along with other open source games. There are also movie players that allow you to play movies off of a networked drive or a USB drive plugged into the wii.

Sure, you can find guides for playing .iso's that you have downloaded but it can get a little tricky to do.

Yet iPhone developers accept this.

Yet people still legally jailbreak their iPhones to get around the lockout on devices they own.

Can you name some examples?

Sure, a couple quick examples for Wii: Wii Earth, Wiihttpd.

android, i tried googling it and it looks like someone made a driver, but its just for a single phone :(
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Sixaxis
some good info there

The CD drive (can I call it a CD-ROM?)

No, because it's a DVD-ROM drive. I hear Nintendo continually denies it, but Wii drives can and do read DVDs.
Just install the Homebrew Channel and MPlayer CE, stick in a DVD, and off you go.

The CD drive (can I call it a CD-ROM?)

No, because it's a DVD-ROM drive. I hear Nintendo continually denies it, but Wii drives can and do read DVDs.
Just install the Homebrew Channel and MPlayer CE, stick in a DVD, and off you go.

The equivalent to modding on consoles is homebrew. The hardware companies don't like it, but it is and probably always will be there.

Not to be confused with IOS

The initial heavy lifting to hack the original XBox, 360 and Wii were done by people trying to put Linux on them.

I'm going to back up AC on this one, at least with respect to the Wii. Team Twiizers, the team of hackers (as in, tinkering, not cheaters) have released multiple tools to not only allow and facilitate non-pirate homebrew software to run, they also actually have made efforts to fix critical flaws in Nintendo's design of the Wii. This includes ways to recover a bricked console, which came into play when Nintendo's own official system updates (designed to block homebrew and piracy indiscriminately) were sloppy to the point of being capable of bricking unmodified Wiis.

Team Twiizers also go out of their way to specifically discourage and hamper piracy, including making their software run upside-down on-screen if you've hacked your Wii so much that you must be using it for piracy. They really want to avoid large-scale piracy, because it'll just give Nintendo the incentive to try and lock the Wii back down, depriving everyone of the non-piracy uses for homebrew. They'll happily help with installing Linux on your Wii, and there are guides for using it as a media center, a ScummVM host, and even a VNC client. You can also emulate pretty much every game console in history up to the PS1, as well as MAME, but finding roms (and whatever trouble that might cause) is up to you. However, they make it clear that discussions of piracy are unwelcome.

Why buy a device that you cannot control?

Because you can't control the close substitutes that are being sold either. For example, all three major video game consoles are like iPhones in that they need to be jailbroken to run anything interesting.

Unlike smartphones, gaming consoles don't usually know your phone number, your contacts, your e-mail, or have photos and videos of you and people you know in real life. It's a bit more important to have control over a device that holds all of that information than it is to control a device that has the sole purpose of playing video games. That's why there is much more such debate over one class of device (smartphones) and far less over another class of device (game consoles) in case you were wondering.

Why buy a device that you cannot control?

Because you can't control the close substitutes that are being sold either. For example, all three major video game consoles are like iPhones in that they need to be jailbroken to run anything interesting.

First let me thank you then. For helping in creating one of the longest living games in history so far. And one of the most frustrating ones.

And let me point out that not all porters work like that, if you look at the Wii port of Jump 'n Bump (which was opensourced) http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Jump_'n_Bump then you find a list of everyone who worked on it in the credits, from the original creators to the final wii port (which is based on the linux SDL port)

This may be enlightening

You can block disc updates with Priiloader or StartPatch.

You can block disc updates with Priiloader or StartPatch.

As for adding new functionality, Nintendo has been adding new functionality to the Wii from time to time as well (dare I say more than Sony has done with PS3). This update is the first anti-piracy-only Wii update that doesn't add new functionality (or fix other problems).

They really haven't. Let's consider the timeline of updates to the Wii software since the first exploit was demonstrated. Note that there's no technical need to update the System Menu, any version of IOS (the invisible "firmware" that implements all of the interesting security features of the system), or any channel at the same time. IOS fixes can never add functionality by themselves, they can only work around some bugs in disc-based games. Any update that claims "behind the scenes updates" or "system improvements" refers to IOS updates, most of which are to patch exploits and very few of which actually impact performance, despite their claims.

• v3.3 June 17, 2008 -- No features, added code to the System Menu to block the Twilight Hack.
• v3.4 November 17, 2008 -- Fixed anti-Twilight Hack code. Updated Parental Controls, and added USB keyboard to the Mii Channel (?). Strange attempt to block the default slot number used by a code example I released.
• v4.0 March 25, 2009 -- Considerable update to the System Menu to add support for running channels that are stored on SD card.
• v4.1 July 2009 -- Fixes an obscure System Menu bug. Added code to better block copy-protected saves.
• v4.2 September 28, 2009 -- First attempt at blocking Bannerbomb.Also added code to delete the Homebrew Channel and DVDX. Added code to check to see if a console had its region altered, in some cases forcing a brick (!). Improved region-checking code for games. Forced a bootloader update (boot2v4) that didn't actually fix any bugs or exploits -- it just overwrote your bootloader "just in case" you had modified it, and caused a fair bit of collateral damage which Nintendo tried to blame on "hacking", even on virgin consoles. (There's a reason they tell you not to reflash your BIOS if you don't really need to...)
• v4.2 June 21, 2010 -- Second attempt at blocking Bannerbomb. Deletes (again!) the Homebrew Channel and BootMii(/IOS), and patches IOS exploits used to install them.

The only update Nintendo has done in the past 2 and a half years that has actually benefitted users was v4.0, which added the SD support (as crude as it was). All the others have just been ways to fix various exploits. They fail at using the carrot; their stick is the fact that the Shopping channel will break unless you update, and many games will force you to update before you can play them.

Sadly for Nintendo there are already two exploits known to work on 4.3U, this one (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Smash_Stack) and this one (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns). Granted you have to have a copy of the game to use them but for most people that is not a problem.

The main thing they blocked are bannerbomb (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Bannerbomb) the exploit used by most everyone to "softmod" a Wii which allowed you to place a file on the SD card and run it via the system menu and the hackmii installer (http://hackmii.com/2009/08/hackmii-installer-v0-3/) which installed the Homebrew channel and bootmii. The hackmii installer should be updated in the coming days as they've been stockpiling exploits and not releasing them to the public in case the one they currently used was ever blocked.

All that said there is no reason to update anyway if you already have homebrew. The shopping channel can always be updated with a homebrew tool and accessed on any version of the system menu. They didn't add anything new to the System menu this time around it was just aimed at removing homebrew just like the last update (4.2).

Sadly for Nintendo there are already two exploits known to work on 4.3U, this one (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Smash_Stack) and this one (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns). Granted you have to have a copy of the game to use them but for most people that is not a problem.

The main thing they blocked are bannerbomb (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Bannerbomb) the exploit used by most everyone to "softmod" a Wii which allowed you to place a file on the SD card and run it via the system menu and the hackmii installer (http://hackmii.com/2009/08/hackmii-installer-v0-3/) which installed the Homebrew channel and bootmii. The hackmii installer should be updated in the coming days as they've been stockpiling exploits and not releasing them to the public in case the one they currently used was ever blocked.

All that said there is no reason to update anyway if you already have homebrew. The shopping channel can always be updated with a homebrew tool and accessed on any version of the system menu. They didn't add anything new to the System menu this time around it was just aimed at removing homebrew just like the last update (4.2).