Reverse-engineering Nintendo's WaveBird wireless controller

Hello and welcome! In this tutorial, we will be looking at the wireless protocol used by the WaveBird, the official wireless controller for the Nintendo GameCube. This repository contains not only the first (to my knowledge) public specs on the protocol, but also detailed information on how it was reverse-engineered. Join me as we explore the art of wireless engineering, study several tricks used to fight interference, learn a little about the history of digital radio, and get a glimpse into the world of reverse-engineering - all without picking up a screwdriver!

Sound good? Great! Head over to Chapter 0: Observations and let's get started!

About the author

Hey there! I'm Sam Edwards; a network/game engineer by trade, but I try to dabble in just about everything. I decided to take a look into my Nintendo WaveBird controller as an exercise in learning more about digital radio, but when I couldn't find any good resources online that were beginner-friendly enough, I figured I could use this experience as a teaching device and maybe help demystify the magic of digital radio for everyone else.

Intended audience for this tutorial

While this tutorial is written with aspiring reverse-engineers (in general) and those wanting to learn more about digital radio (in particular) in mind, I welcome anyone who finds this stuff fascinating to get involved and learn a thing or two about wireless.

Questions?

My goal for this tutorial is that you won't have any - so if you do, file them as issues and I'll try to phrase things a little bit better! :)

Want to contribute?

Great! I welcome pull requests. Just keep in mind that the whole point here is to be a clear and informative tutorial not just on WaveBird in particular, but on reverse-engineering in general. This means that beginner-friendliness is more important than 100% correctness. We want to make sure acronyms/initialisms are fully defined and explained, and topics not central to the subject at hand should be explained only as much as necessary.

Disclaimer

It's important to note here that at no point in this project have I physically opened any Nintendo product, examined any circuit boards, dumped any firmware, disassembled/decompiled any copyrighted software, or worked to circumvent any copy protection. I am also not encouraging any of my readers to do the same - taking apart another company's intellectual property may void your warranty (at best) and could be a violation of their rights (at worst) resulting in legal action taken against you personally.

I encourage everyone reading this to stay safe and know their local laws!