{"id":428,"date":"2013-03-14T02:51:08","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T02:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.griffinscs.com\/blog\/?p=428"},"modified":"2013-03-14T02:51:08","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T02:51:08","slug":"quart-reenter-the-gamecube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/?p=428","title":{"rendered":"Quart: (Re)Enter the Gamecube"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the last post<\/a> I laid out the motivation for the little network appliance I've dubbed Quart. \u00a0The reason for the name is that I'm enclosing and operating a Raspberry Pi<\/a> inside the nearly-quart-sized Nintendo Gamecube, which has been collecting dust in the basement for the last six years or so, since we replaced it with the Wii.<\/p>\n

Why Gamecube?<\/strong><\/p>\n

After all, this system lived out\u00a0a relatively short tenure as a video input in our household and doesn't evoke the same nostalgia as, say, Super Nintendo (or more in my case, Commodore 64). \u00a0In fact, the short answer to the question above is: We couldn't find the Super Nintendo. \u00a0But having decided on the Gamecube, I hit on a number of other great qualifications that make RPi and Gamecube a delightful abomination.<\/p>\n

Cheap and Available<\/p>\n

I hit on this already. \u00a0What else are you going to do with the bloody thing? \u00a0If you still own a Gamecube, you likely have a Wii as well. \u00a0The Wii is, of course, fully backward compatible. \u00a0So your Gamecube is either on your<\/em> shelf, or the one at your local game trader; waiting to be sold for a pittance.<\/p>\n

Relatively Small<\/p>\n

We saw Nintendo and competitors take drastically different paths for the first time in this generation. \u00a0Sony and newcomer Microsoft came out with their enthusiast-oriented powerhouses, while Nintendo released the smaller, lower-powered, inexpensive Gamecube. \u00a0Admittedly it's still quite a bit larger than cases made to fit a Pi snugly, but it cleanly exposes the required controller ports, power and reset buttons.<\/p>\n

Serviceable<\/p>\n

Once you get past the four\u00a0blasted security screws on the bottom<\/a>, and start pulling it apart you may start noticing how well the various\u00a0concerns\u00a0are isolated and\u00a0accessible. \u00a0We end up using precious little of the remaining guts, but the wheat is cleanly separated from the chaff. \u00a0More details on this later.<\/p>\n

Buttons<\/p>\n

Remember, one of the major requirements for this system is that all user functions will be available via the gamepad. Gamecube controllers have an ample number of inputs, and even sport some fairly modern concepts, like analog triggers, which make XBMC navigation a far more pleasurable experience.<\/p>\n

Features<\/strong><\/p>\n

All four control ports are fed to GPIO and are functional using\u00a0Markus Hiienkari's work<\/a> with the original Linux gamecon driver by\u00a0Vojtech Pavlik, and some\u00a0modifications<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Runs OpenELEC, forked to support SDL gamepad input and modified gamecon driver.<\/p>\n

Integrated power button and LED<\/p>\n

Integrated reset button<\/p>\n

Integrated classic power and AV cables<\/p>\n

\"\"

Standard male USB A cable with power leads spliced to the original Gamecube power adapter. Splice is concealed in a small, clasped component case.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Small Cat 5 extension surfaces below the chassis, and can be enclosed under the "Hi Speed Port" placeholder. <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last post I laid out the motivation for the little network appliance I’ve dubbed Quart. \u00a0The reason for the name is that I’m enclosing and operating a Raspberry Pi inside the nearly-quart-sized Nintendo Gamecube, which has been collecting dust in the basement for the last six years or so, since we replaced it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[20,35,41,43,63],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainslug.azurewebsites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}