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The Wii Disassembled
mrmcgeeber writes "There are two ways to take apart the Wii. The first, as demonstrated by Popular Science, involves breaking the Wii open due to a lack of tools. The second method is a more formal Wii disassembly guide, which is provided by InformIT.com. Either way, you can see some detailed pictures of the internals of the Wii and how the parts are laid out. The InformIT.com version also includes an eight minute teardown video."
No disassemble! No disassemble!
smashmywii.com!
Its full of craptastic goodness.
liqbase
Many consoles employ ways of ensuring you can't disassemble them without causing breaking warranties. Even without that being someone who's spent time repairing various laptops I know first hand that it can be tricky figuring out how to take electronic devices apart without damaging them by snapping a piece of plastic or some such.
The news isn't just that it can be taken apart, that'd be silly, pretty much everything can be taken apart some way or another. The news is that someone has provided an article to do it properly and some people like to see what's inside without taking their own system apart also. It's a guide for people who like modding their systems which is a hobby many people enjoy, particularly amongst those of us who like to see what makes things tick.
It might not be news, but seeing the internals of new hardware is always interesting. At least, on a geek site it usually is. I thought it looked pretty neat... looks like it will be as quiet and cool as the GC. I hate the noise the PS2 and the Xbox make.
Would you begrude the same people who like to tinker in their car's engine or even people who enjoy cooking?
It's also worth nothing that not all of the hardware specs had been released, and the article fills in the gaps in what Nintendo released. It may not be of interest to you personally but you can't say it's not news.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I would be more interesed to see a controller opened.
Why do I have a funny feeling that you didn't bother to RTFA?
This guy's the limit!
It's not a sensor array, it's just LEDs emitting infrared light.
The sensor is in the Wiimote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTGSkYRDpWY
I hate the way some companies use oddball screws to try and stop people taking the device apart. It doesn't work - those who really want to take it apart will find the tool or improvise, and it merely annoys them. Those who don't want to take it apart wouldn't even if you used screws that could be undone with the tip of a steak knife.
It's like a wall-wart I have at home - I want to get the case off it to salvage the transformer for other projects, yet they use these nasty 'interrupted flathead' screws (two slots opposite each other on the screw head) which now means I have to buy or make a special tool *just* for this one device. Grrr. Eventually the tool will become common (just like Torx bits have become common, that was the last shenanigan they tried to stop people from taking something apart) and they will change to another infuriatingly uncommon screw type.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The fact you can disassemble the Wii is news how exactly?
Would you rather read about the latest Google acquisition? Or how about yet another evolution/ID troll? Oh I see let's talk about the RIAA again...
THIS my friend, is news for nerds. Someone took apart their Wi, and you can see the porno-grade pics. Who else on this planet, apart from nerds, would be interested in THAT?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I enjoyed many an hour as a child taking electronics apart and putting them back together
I used to do the same to small animals. They never worked properly afterwards though - they'd just sit there and pretend to be asleep. Dumb animals...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It's made in Canada!
... Canadian chips have better cooling.
Of course
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
And for those who don't have time, motherboards photos :
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
The sensor is in the wiimote. It probably has some kind of low-res ccd that detects the light from the sensor bar and uses it to figure out its orientation. Pretty clever stuff though I expect it would be easy to confuse the hell out of it with strip lighting or sunlight.
And if you opened the case of your next (working) computer and only found a few LED's I suppose you would be equally dismissive, eh?
Sometimes the revolution is about what isn't there, not what is there.
He obviously hates it.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
It is a DVD drive, it just doesn't play DVD movies because the Wii software/firmware support isn't there.
Yes. To be more accurate...the article has it backwards. It says the bars on the TV are IR detectors and the Wiimote has an IR output. In reality, the bars on the TV are nothing more than IR emitters, and the detector is in the Wiimote (like you said...a ccd)
Here's a comprehensive video from EETimes (c/o Semiconductor Insights):
t ml;jsessionid=W3LH3HBXTZ2ESQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=19 4500278
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jh
They take apart the controller too.
I'm not an electronical engineer but I do believe that traces are layered. Typical PCB's in production hardware like computer motherboards have I think at least 3 layers. Although this is all up to the complexity of the hardware as well as who designed it. I know they can have less and I dont see why they couldn't have more layers. Some of the more intricate traces may be hidden. Either that or Nintendo has received hardware specifications from aliens ;)
I will forever be a student.
GC games require the GC controller as far as I know. Virtual Console games however all work with the Classic controller plus the GC controller and depending on the game the Wiimote can be used (mainly NES and some Genesis games). Back to Zelda!
Uh... does anybody have a link to the reassembly page?
They called it a DVD drive because it is a DVD drive. It's pretty much the same thing as the DVD-ROM in your computer. Just putting a DVD drive in your computer isn't going to give you the ability to play DVD movies, you'd have to have some sort of DVD player software. You can read the files off of the disk, but if you don't have an MPEG2 decoder, they're just going to be files. I personally don't see the need to have the Wii be able to play DVD movies. It's a game console...if I really want to play DVD movies, the local grocery store has progressive scan DVD players for $28, and these will be better for movies than any game console. It's not like it is when the PS2 first came out, when DVD players were still relatively expensive (and thus having DVD playback on the PS2 was helpful).
That's not true at all. Although the chart doesn't say anything about whether the classic controller can be used for gamecube games. Given that you can use both the gamecube and classic controller for most of the same VC games i'd be surprised if the classic controller didn't work for gamecube games. In fact, hold on....
Ok, i stand corrected, i can't get the classic controller to work with Star Wars Lego 2. In fact the remote doesn't work at _all_, meaning there's no way to get back to the Wii menu once you've started a gamecube game without manually reseting the system as far as i can tell. Hopefully both of those issues will be fixed by a patch at some point.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Your nickname might have been temporarily banned, possibly because you posted 4 postings within 4 days since creating your account and all 4 were sweet but useless. They were consequently moderated to -1, and some automatic Slashdot script took you for a troll and banned you. If you want to clear things up you might want to do what the message you received tells you, and email the Slashdot staff at posting@slashdot.org. Include "Mipoti Gusundar" in the email subject.
By the way the, judging from your signature you still have problems comprehending what "offtopic" means although I already told you here. I believe you just have some problems adapting to Slashdot (or the world?) plus I have a few ties to Chennai, and so I will assume for now that you are genuine and not a very clever troll. Email me if you want to ask questions, you can find my email address on my user page.
On the other hand, the website URL on your user page has a typo ("instatute") but even after fixing it I cannot find the server. I did however find these postings of yours where you also failed to enter the URL correctly (plus failed to make a useful posting in the first place). Hmmm, what's up with you?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Doesn't this give N an opportunity to save money on the systems shipped, since they have to pay a lisence for the decoding capabilities? This way, they can sell the DVD software seperately via the marketplace, and only have to cover the lisence for those who actually plan to watch DVD's on the system.
The original Xbox was like this as well, requiring an additional purchase to unlock DVD playback.
PCBs tend to have multiple layers, typically multiples of two. Often they are made by starting off with a sheet of PCB with copper on both sides, which is etched. Another layer of resin is added to each side, followed by copper plating of both sides, which is then itself etched. Wash, rinse, repeat (literally).
PC motherboards most certainly have multiple layers, often twelve to sixteen. This is so that the extremely large number of components required can be placed very close together and yet still be routed successfully (routing is the process whereby traces are laid out to connect components together). Indeed, on some motherboards I've seen none of the routing other than the most trivial is on the outermost layers of the PCB.
Pirate Party UK