Gamecube Mystery Ports!

[Grall]

Anyone here have info on the expansion slots on the underside of the Gamecube? I heard someone said the high-speed/parallel/whatever port is in fact just a passthrough of the A-RAM memory bus. Feels kinda weird I think, memory doesn't seem well-suited to use as an I/O interface.

Anyway, how about the serial ports? The bigger network expansion port has more pins in it. Anyone has any data on these?


*G*

 

[Tagrineth]

The "Parallel" expansion port is IIRC an HDMA port to the A-RAM, and could be used for A-RAM expansions, but it's going to be used for the Game Boy Player... the GBP probably works by HDMA-ing the finished image from the GBP into the A-RAM, which Flipper then grabs and puts on your screen

The long "Serial" expansion is used for the modem and ethernet port. It's probably a direct interface with Flipper somehow.

The short one currently has no obvious uses; though it could be used for something like an i-Link port (which GCN really should have had in the first place ).

 

[Rodéric]

The short one currently has no obvious uses; though it could be used for something like an i-Link port (which GCN really should have had in the first place ).

really ?
I don't even know what's an i-Link port... So I'm not sure it needed to be there.

 

[megateto]

really ?
I don't even know what's an i-Link port... So I'm not sure it needed to be there.

I can't believe, I can answer a question in this forum...

You don't have a PS2, don't you? It's the way Sony calls the Firewire ports.

i-Link=Firewire=IE1394

 

[CeiserSöze]

The short one currently has no obvious uses; though it could be used for something like an i-Link port (which GCN really should have had in the first place ).

Does the port even have the necessary bandwith (400MBits/sec afaik) to support Firewire?

 

[maskrider]

The short one currently has no obvious uses; though it could be used for something like an i-Link port (which GCN really should have had in the first place ).

Does the port even have the necessary bandwith (400MBits/sec afaik) to support Firewire?

Most of the time the transfer rate in use is way way under 400Mb/s, I guess that doesn't really matter. Sony (shoud also have some other brands) has an extra label to specify the port speed, e.g. S400 (400Mb/s), S200 (200Mb/s) on the i.Link ports. Most D-VHS recorders have S200 ports, still the bandwidth needed for D-VHS is way way under 200Mb/s.

BTW, the i.Link port name was used mostly on consumer electronics.

 

[Tagrineth]

Well i.Link is used by PS2 and Xbox to do LAN gaming... something GCN really should've had. :\ Especially considering the console's portability... it's much easier to lug your GCN to a friend's house than your Xbox.

 

[StefanS]

Well i.Link is used by PS2 and Xbox to do LAN gaming... something GCN really should've had. :\ Especially considering the console's portability... it's much easier to lug your GCN to a friend's house than your Xbox.

Well, rumour has it that Nintendo is working on networking and its supposedly to be shown at E3.
At least it's not out of question since PSO showed network play at last E3.

 

[Tagrineth]

Indeed. And thinking about bandwidth, it must have at least comparable bandwidth to the long serial port, which is wide enough to support broadband.

 

[Grall]

Most broadband ADSL or cable connections is 2Mbit/s OR LESS (sometimes as low as 128kbit/s). 10mbit/s ethernet takes care of that just fine (my ADSL modem is just 10mbit/s and it's not even full duplex on its ethernet port).

Now, even assuming the GC ethernet adapter is 100Mbit/s full duplex, is the port speed into the GC that fast?

Anyone at all have any tech docs or something on these things?


*G*

PS: Tag... The XB doesn't have Firewire at all to my knowledge. It's not a part of the original NForce chipset which the MCP in the XB is based on.

 

[Magnum PI]

i think that the Ethernet port is used to connect several xboxes

 

[Tagrineth]

Yeah, Xboxes can be LAN'ed.

Also, just looked at Stacy's PS2 and the i.Link port is S400.

 

[Rodéric]

I know what is FireWire/IEEE1394.
Didn't knew it got yet another name...

Why can't they use a standard name ?

 

[Natoi]

Because Sony has a *BAD* habit of renaming already existing techologies with funky marketing names and then adding them to *every* piece of consumer electronics they make from thereon. Or making virtually identical techonologies to compete with the existing ones (MiniDV, DVCPro and Sony's DV (for which the tapes are bigger and the quality is on par with DVCPro))

IEEE1394 = i.Link = FireWire = SB1394 .. a loved child has may names..

And the Xbox doesn't have a FireWire port

 

[CeiserSöze]

I know what is FireWire/IEEE1394.
Didn't knew it got yet another name...

Why can't they use a standard name ?

The i-Link brand was created by Sony and is mainly used in conjunction with multimedia equipment (Sony created it when they used IEEE1394 in their DV-camcorders). The Firewire brand is used by the Mac-people because it's Apple's trademark. It was adopted by the 1394 trade association last year though so maybe it will replace the IEEE1394 name in the Wintel-space too. It's as simple as that

 

[Glonk]

Well i.Link is used by PS2 and Xbox to do LAN gaming... something GCN really should've had. :\ Especially considering the console's portability... it's much easier to lug your GCN to a friend's house than your Xbox.

The Xbox has 10Mbps ethernet, not iLink/FireWire.