A Wii, a Mac, and a lightsaber walk into a bar

by Christopher Grant { Dec 12th 2006 at 5:25PM }

The following idea was birthed from what could only be described as a drunken orgy between a Wii-mote, a Mac, and a Star Wars geek. The program's creator took his existing app that uses the MacBook's built-in tilt sensor to transform your computer into a lightsaber, and took it one step further. Coupling that functionality with the data retrieved by the recently released DarwiinRemote, WiiSaber was born. Pair your Wii-mote with your Bluetooth-enabled Mac and swing it around to make authentic lightsaber sounds so you can finally live out your ~~Star Wars kid~~ Stephen Colbert fantasies.

ps- Yeah, we tried it. It works great ... just be sure you're alone.

[Via plasticbag.org]

Tags: Bluetooth, lightsaber, Star Wars, StarWars, Wii, WiiSaber

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ignatius @ Dec 12th 2006 5:28PM

Who uses Macs?

Norm @ Dec 12th 2006 5:30PM

I'm not seeing any image there...

ill trooper @ Dec 12th 2006 5:31PM

No one you would ever, ever know, Ignatius... And I'm using 'Ignatius' in a 'Confederacy of Dunces' sort of way -

Viva L' OSX!

Defenestrator2.0 @ Dec 12th 2006 5:31PM

What's a Mac?

Chris @ Dec 12th 2006 5:32PM

More like nerdular nerdence

Psaakyrn @ Dec 12th 2006 5:38PM

It isn't a WiiSaber until I can hear lightsaber sounds from the Wii remote..

JCollum @ Dec 12th 2006 5:49PM

I hope for the sake of that guy's "unit" that he's under 18. At least he has time to hit the gym. But imagine all the cool crap that game designers are thinking of now along those lines. Man, if I could have a lightsaber battle in real time with a friend, with force feedback? Cool.

Gortman @ Dec 12th 2006 5:58PM

There's a much better here:
http://www.macrecon.com/2006/12/12/fun-with-the-wiimote/

And yes, I'm a Mac user.

Chris @ Dec 12th 2006 6:06PM

Wii Drums is way cooler. (and it works on PC :-P)
http://bluedot.us/users/X/dot/71666132136

Ndric @ Dec 12th 2006 6:44PM

Mac?

Foetoid @ Dec 12th 2006 7:04PM

I am hopeing that all the people here asking "What is a mac", but if any are serious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Mac

As a general rule (very general rule), Macs are more powerful and more stable than regular computers. My Dad owns/runs a recording studio with some specially upgraded mac with tons of hardware and it shits all over his AU$10,000 home PC he uses for gaming that has all the trimmings. Macs though are generally harder to upgrade, more expensive, and they don't have Windows normally, meaning 99.9% of PC games don't work on them. Macs are best left for uber business use

Ninja @ Dec 12th 2006 7:08PM

Mac? Don't assume everyone knows your lingo. He's referring to the new MacDonalds computer thing. Way to confuse everybody, Retards!

Ignatius @ Dec 12th 2006 7:47PM

The only reason a Mac is more stable is because hackers don't care about making viruses, worms, trojans or exploiting security holes because NO ONE USES IT.

Oh, and to Ill Trooper. PHOTOSHOP IS NOT A GAME.

zachary @ Dec 12th 2006 7:58PM

Foetoid, you are kidding right?
Macs are hardly ever more powerful. People only use them for aesthetic reasons and because nobody wants to make viruses for an OS that's already pathetic.
Anyway,
whats the point of this? Until my Wii controller actually projects a beam of light capable of cutting sith to bits, I'll stick with using it as a baseball bat.

Drew @ Dec 12th 2006 8:15PM

Uh oh, time for the MAC vs. PC arguments to begin!

On another note, that kid has wayyyy too much time on his hands.

Macview @ Dec 12th 2006 8:32PM

"Macs are hardly ever more powerful. People only use them for aesthetic reasons and because nobody wants to make viruses for an OS that's already pathetic."

Yeah since you've obviously never used one you wouldn't know as any PC user who has ever switched (more each day) Keep saying "WTF was I thinking all those years using a PC"

As for the "he only reason a Mac is more stable is because hackers don't care about making viruses, worms, trojans or exploiting security holes because NO ONE USES IT", More Myth and BS FUD from those who are ignorant. UNIX is at it's base level more secure than Windows PERIOD. OSX or not. Gee how much recognition would a hacker get if he DID hack a Mac OS to all the PC fan boys Delight? Oh wait they cant. End of Story.

10 Years on a Mac - ZERO viruses.

Shannon @ Dec 12th 2006 8:41PM

> Who uses Macs?

Only a huge portion of the creative/design industry.

Andy @ Dec 12th 2006 8:41PM

roflmao OS dickwagging out of nowhere.
I love you guys.

FSK405K @ Dec 12th 2006 9:15PM

I swear, the Joystiq comment posters are kindly considerate bastards.

Tim Robertson @ Dec 12th 2006 9:24PM

Hey, it actually works. Small 1MB file, saw my Wiimote, and off it goes. The trigger actually "opens and closes" the lightsaber. This is super-super lame it actually falls into the cool category.

As for the Mac haters out there, it is just 14 year olds with poor parents who force them to use a crappy Dell or HP, and can't afford a real computer. Me? I just feel sorry for them.

mcloki @ Dec 12th 2006 9:29PM

That is very very awesome.
And for the Mac cracks. It's only a matter of time.

mountain_rage @ Dec 13th 2006 12:11AM

Sadly little 14 years olds will think macs suck because they do not understand the basis around them.

The old macs were actually far superior in terms of power then the new ones. Power PC architecture is much faster at processing information. There are certain phases that a processor has to go through to run information. x86(or Intel processors) require something like 21 different phases to do what power PC does in 7. So an 800mhz power PC is about the same as a 1.6ghz Intel.

The new macs on the other hand have far less of an advantage using regular Intel. They still do have a slight improvement do to cleaner programming but its not a big advantage over Pc.

Brian Sexton @ Dec 13th 2006 1:04AM

A Mac is a computer that blends stable Unixy goodness with an elegant graphical user interface when it is running Mac OS X and does everything a Windows-only system can do when it is running Windows. For Web development, an Intel-based Mac is probably the best, most flexible computer money can buy.

JPJ007 @ Dec 13th 2006 2:01AM

Awesome.

Mephistopheles @ Dec 13th 2006 4:30AM

Now if this report mentioned a game being available for the Mac...

Love Gadgets @ Dec 13th 2006 5:39AM

It is cool and yes you do have to be on your own lol, but will the feed back frequencies make the console or controller breakdown, surely it could.

Esch @ Dec 13th 2006 7:29AM

I've tried out DarwiinRemote, but haven't had a chance to give WiiSaber a crack. Looks pretty interesting; I'm especially impressed by how responsive it seems.

And, of course, here's the real reason for my post...

"There are certain phases that a processor has to go through to run information. x86(or Intel processors) require something like 21 different phases to do what power PC does in 7. So an 800mhz power PC is about the same as a 1.6ghz Intel."

I assume that you're talking about stages. In fact, having more stages can increase the throughput of a processor, because more instructions can be run in parallel (i.e. pipelined, if you're familiar with the lingo). Regardless, the PPC architecture does have an advantage over x86 in that it's RISC rather than CISC, and instructions have a uniform, fixed length, which makes it much easier to do pipelining.