Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WavePhoenix – Open-source implementation of the Nintendo WaveBird protocol

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 15 posts

Re: WavePhoenix – Open-source implementation of the Nintendo WaveBird protocol

#2

Post by bilekas »

Ooh this is fun actually will check this out. I have my Gamecube gathering dust somewhere, great excuse to bring it out.

I'm half joking, but the cynic in me worries that a company line Nintento will have some patents on something here and not appreciate the MIT licensing.

Re: WavePhoenix – Open-source implementation of the Nintendo WaveBird protocol

#4

Post by zorked »

bilekas wrote: post #2

Ooh this is fun actually will check this out. I have my Gamecube gathering dust somewhere, great excuse to bring it out. I'm half joking, but the cynic in me worries that a company line Nintento will have some patents on something here and not appreciate the MIT licensing.

The WaveBird controller was released over 20 years ago, so a any patent protection it could have is gone.

Also, not a reason not to do things.

Re: WavePhoenix – Open-source implementation of the Nintendo WaveBird protocol

#6

Post by kop316 »

bilekas wrote: post #2

Ooh this is fun actually will check this out. I have my Gamecube gathering dust somewhere, great excuse to bring it out. I'm half joking, but the cynic in me worries that a company line Nintento will have some patents on something here and not appreciate the MIT licensing.

I thought about implementing something similar (I read through the reverse engineering docs).

All of the information was done through clean room reverse engineering (the reason it took so long for something like this is that Nintendo used a very wonky wireless protocol). As such, I don't see what they could sue for, as that is entirely legal (at least in the US).

Re: WavePhoenix – Open-source implementation of the Nintendo WaveBird protocol

#7

Post by simlevesque »

bilekas wrote: post #2

Ooh this is fun actually will check this out. I have my Gamecube gathering dust somewhere, great excuse to bring it out. I'm half joking, but the cynic in me worries that a company line Nintento will have some patents on something here and not appreciate the MIT licensing.

BlueRetro GameCube has been around for quite some time.

https://github.com/darthcloud/BlueRetro

Re: WavePhoenix – Open-source implementation of the Nintendo WaveBird protocol

#8

Post by roblabla »

kop316 wrote: post #6
bilekas wrote: post #2

Ooh this is fun actually will check this out. I have my Gamecube gathering dust somewhere, great excuse to bring it out. I'm half joking, but the cynic in me worries that a company line Nintento will have some patents on something here and not appreciate the MIT licensing.

I thought about implementing something similar (I read through the reverse engineering docs). All of the information was done through clean room reverse engineering (the reason it took so long for something like this is that Nintendo used a very wonky wireless protocol). As such, I don't see what they could sue for, as that is entirely legal (at least in the US).

Well clean-room reverse engineering doesn't protect you from patent infringement - only for copyright related issues. I don't think that's a real concern for your project though, as patents only last for 20 years, so most if not all patents related to the WaveBird should have expired already.

Of course, I am not a lawyer :^).

Re: WavePhoenix – Open-source implementation of the Nintendo WaveBird protocol

#9

Post by someperson »

Is it theoretically possible for a driver to be written for the Wii to support dongleless play with the "Nintendont" homebrew app?

It would of course require driver modifications, and I don't know if the existing 2.4GHz radio is capable of this, but likely possible with custom firmware for the radio chip.

Post reply on HN