Wii external memory support via eSOL

[shams]

...actually, I had a good think about this on the way home - and I have changed my opinion.

I don't believe the internal 512MB of ram is memory mapped at all. That would be too dangerous, and allow a rogue app to destroy the entire contents. It would also mean the Wii had "effectively" 512MB more RAM than it actually did (albiet slow RAM).

It would be accessed through an API - and possibly the same sort of API that files on the disk device (or external devices) would be accessed.

...so in terms of external memory support, it purely comes down to whether the data is encrypted. And since its done via an API - there isn't much reason why it couldn't be encrypted. In fact, existing reports (as pointed by DarkNight) seem to indicate that this is so.

...

Conclusion - it should be pretty trivial to for Ninty to extend the current system, such that VC or WiiWare apps are either stored on USB key, hard disk, SD card... or maybe even network drive. The main work would be to extend the internal management tools such that users can copy/erase files between any of these devices - and maybe even allow the channel system to scan external devices for additional channels. This could add a significant delay to the boot-up time of the Wii however - so some directory or FAT system stored on the internal memory could be useful.