Glossary

This page serves as a glossary of commonly used Wii homebrew terms. Think of it as a mini dictionary for words you'll hear a lot while reading through our wiki. It was started to help newcomers to the homebrew scene better understand our jargon.

N

NAND

Typically refers to the Wii's internal storage, which uses a NAND-based flash chip. The term actually stands for Not-AND; an electronic gate whose output is low only when all inputs are high.

See also: Flash.

P

Partial Brick

See "Semi-Brick".

PCB

Printed Circuit Board. The Wii has a few of these, most notably the mainboard containing all the crucial parts and the game disc drive's control board where modchips are typically installed.

PPC

PowerPC; Power Performance Computing. The processing architecture of the Gamecube and Wii consoles. Also used in the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3.

R

RSA

An encryption/digital signature algorithm used by the Wii. When implemented correctly it is too strong to be broken with modern technology. The acronym is made from the names of its inventors.

T

Team Twiizers

A team of people who have created many hacks for the Wii including the Homebrew Channel, the Twilight Hack, and DVDX.

Teknecal

The author and maintainer of the HomeBrew Browser.

See also: Hombrew Browser.

Ticket

Basically, a ticket is just an encryption key used to read the encrypted title it belongs to.

See also: TIK, Encryption, Title.

TIK

A ticket file corresponding to an encrypted title.

See also: Ticket, Encryption, Title.

Title

A title is a Wii game on a disc, a Wii channel or a virtual console game. A title is identified by a unique title ID, an 8 byte (4 character) long code used for title identification. All titles are encrypted for security purposes.

Title Metadata

A format used for storing metadata about a title and its installed contents, including which contents they consist of and their SHA1 hashes.

TMD

See "Title Metadata".

Trucha

See "Fakesign".

Tweezer Attack

Involving some Gamecube homebrew code running on the Wii in combination with a pair of tweezers, the Tweezer Attack is what allowed hackers access to the locked portions of the Wii normally invisible when the machine is running in Gamecube compatibility mode. It allowed the creation of true Wii homebrew.

Twilight Hack

A hacked save game with a loader embedded in it for the Wii game The Legend of Zelda the Twilight Princess. The file exploits a buffer overflow to take control of the system and run a program found on the SD card, such as the Homebrew Channel installer.

V

VC

See "Virtual Console".

Virtual Console

A phrase invented by Nintendo so that they didn't have to use the word "emulator".