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When the price dropped, I bought one and modded it out. It makes a wicked little living room all in one media center, once you strip out all the MS crap.

If MS dropped the price to drive the sale of games, it didn't work on me, I've yet to play an acutal game on it!

I suppose I should give some props to xbox linux, too. I had it running debian for a while.

With the Xbox, there are several completely legitimate uses for a modchip: running Linux (cheap webserver), or playing media files on a TV. The major problem? End users cannot use these applications without a software modification or modchip.

Even though the applications might not be designed to increase piracy, one thing that Microsoft can and will "kick" about is the modified BIOS that modchips or exploits use. It's their intellectual property, and modifying it (like the EvoX team does) or reverse engineering it could be considered piracy. The only legal BIOS out there is Cromwell, which the Xbox-Linux team uses to load Linux. Most chips now come pre-loaded with Cromwell, which can flash the modchip with a more useful bios (think gray-market there.)

Initially, Microsoft's attach rate - the amount of games they would need to sell to become profitable on each console - was nine in-house titles per machine. I'm not sure of the exact figure today, though, with the recent price drop and all.

In any event, if you have an Xbox and don't care about Xbox Live, there are software exploits you can use to perform the same features as a modchip would have. Xbox-Scene has pretty much anything a new modded Xbox user would want.

When you can pirate other systems games on there as well?

One of the reasons that the Xbox was so easily turned into an amazing home entertainment center/emulation station, was that it was basically a PC. Everyone in the world uses PCs, and the software was easily ported, and the hardware easily understood. Microsoft will _not_ make the same mistake again.

You have to remember that the PPC only has about 1% of the global computing marketshare. It is a platform that is always the _last_ to get any homebrew apps, like ports of utilities to transfer or unpack xbox isos for instance. There just arent enough people on Mac. If you take the 1-2% of the global computer base, then take the fraction of a percent of that which are people capable of writing programs, and then the fraction of them who have time to make a mac app to interface a game console etc.. I think you're left with 3 people, and from what I'm told, they live in Sweden.

As if switching to a virtually unknown hardware platform wasn't enough, flash memory maker M-Systems announced on Wednesday that it has signed a contract to provide storage products for future versions of the Xbox.. It looks like they are contemplating ditching hard drives altogether. I mean it was Microsofts using common components that allowed people to simply unplug the Seagate 9GB and plug in a 120GB to store games, video.. anything.

I think we will all be surprised by what M$ is cooking. Why in the world would they forsake things like backwards game compatibility, take time to tweak and make an NT kernel on PPC, apparently ditch the HD.. They are hatching a plan, and it involves linux and homebrew *NOT* running on xbox2.

Uses Divx+AC3 files for great compression with minimal loss of picture quality.

Scales Divx video up to 720p for remarkable picture quality, which in many cases looks better than the original DVD. The PQ approaches HD in many cases.

Allows Dolby 5.1 AC3 optical pass-thru for true surround sound with no recompression of audio streams. The sound you hear is the sound on the original DVD.

Each compressed DVD movie is just over 1GB in size.

Compressed movies can be delivered to wireless clients anywhere in the home with standard 802.11b, with seamless playback.

Head-end server can be located in the basement or a closet to keep computer and fan noise away from your home theatre.

Also stores and catalogs your entire MP3 music library for listening to music from any client.

Outputs stereo audio sources (such as standard MP3 files) to both front and rear stereo channels in a surround setup, giving you output from all speakers in your surround setup, even if you're only listening to a stereo source.

Listen to Internet radio from any client.

The only disadvantage to my setup:

Not enough disk space to rip entire movies including menus in a lossless format. My setup can fully support reading .VOB files from the server, provided you have enough space to store them all.

Actually, I think it's pretty good. This is the hardware I had lying around to work with, most donated by my work:

1 Sun Ultra 5 360 mhz. workstation w/ 256 MB RAM and 9GB HD. (about $190 on eBay).

1 dual-channel differential PCI SCSI card, (about $20 on eBay).

1 Sun StorEdge D1000 with 10x 18GB SCSI hard drives, (about $130 for the array itself on eBay, then buy some Sun spud drive brackets and load up with your own SCSI drives).

1 Xbox, modded, with DVD remote kit, for each client.

You could get a much cheaper server for storage and all that by just building a PC clone and throwing a few 250 GB hard drives in it, but this hardware was free (except for the Xbox), so I used what I have.

Here are the installation steps:

1. Install Solaris 9 on the Ultra 5.

2. Use Solstice Disksuite to setup a RAID 5 metadevice spanning across all 10 18GB SCSI drives. Newfs the metadevice, end up with about 150 GB of space mounted under /bigdisk.

3. Setup Samba on the Ultra 5 and share out the /bigdisk partition in read-only to everyone and read-write to your ripping workstation.

4. Rip your DVDs in Divx format with AC3 audio (don't recompress the audio stream, because AC3 is already compressed and you want 5.1 surround, right?)

5. Save your .avi video files to the Samba server.

6. Mod your Xbox (use the 007 agent under fire savegame hack to avoid buying a modchip and cracking the case). If you want instructions on how to do this, check out the Tutorials section on this site.

7. Install XboxMediaCenter on your Xbox and set it up as the main dashboard.

8. Configure XBoxMediaCenter to point to your Video server using smb://username:password@servername/bigdisk or whatever you decided to name it.

9. Enjoy movie watching madness from any TV in your house.

You could get an Xecuter 2 Pro from Team Xecuter to mod the xbox. Then go ahead and replace the default desktop with an Xecuter bios, and load that puppy up with XBMC, an Xbox Media Center dashboard (or one of the other more popular dashs).
Going from there, you would download dvd2xbox. This will give you an exact 1 to 1 rip of your DVDs, Xbox games etc. You can simply play then from your hard drive with the default xbox dvd player (or a homebrew one).

Of course, if you want to fit all 1TB or so you'll need to add an external box with the 4HDs you have with a switch. The xbox can't use more than one HD at a time, so just order them from A to Z. The outcome though would be an amazing shuttle like system that you can use to play games, and even control fully (except for the games) with your xbox remote.

1 used xbox: $150
1 cheapmod: $10
-or-
rented copy of "mech assault" or "007 agent under fire" plus memory card: $20
1 copy of xbox media center (visit #xbins on efnet to obtain this): priceless! (and free too!)

XBox Media Center (XBMC) will play VOB files across the network from machines sharing the files via SMB (regular windows networking) or 2 other xbox-only streaming protocols. XBMC also plays divx, xvid, mpeg, quicktime, realmedia, ogm, and other video codecs. throw in mp3/ogg support, streaming internet radio from shoutcast, a picutre viewer for your digital pics, and even weather updates from the weather channel.com and you have yourself a pretty cheap playback system.

oh yeah and it can play xbox games too.

xbox media center website
information on hacking the xbox (news, tutorials, and forums)
reliable source of cheap chips in the us

I've tried dyne:bolic or here for my xbox. It works, but the version I tried was sadly slow. Seems like 32MB RAM isn't what this distro calls a good time. And of course: It requires your xbox to chipped and ready.

There's just no way those solutions will be competing with commercial online gaming platforms, like XBox Live, any time soon though. Mostly, for technical reasons: most console users don't want to have to deal with setting up a LAN or even basic routing functionality (as you have to do when using a tunneling tool), no matter how simple, they just want stuff to work out of the box. Exposure is another problem: XBox Live is a household name. Most people, on the other hand, don't even know that independently run online gaming services exist.

It will be interesting to see how the PC gaming crowd, which is generally more inclined to tweak their systems and try new stuff, will react when free, preferably open-source online services become widely available. With high-bandwidth Internet access becoming affordable, or even standard, in many areas this might just turn out to be a very interesting thing(tm).

Its a standard usb HID. Just mash yourself an extension cable into a usb cable (even colour coded right) and get the drivers, dont have a url, but x-box scene has plenty of tutorials.

I have one and it is the most amazing damn thing I have ever had. I can play all my internet movies, music files and copy all my games to it making carting my Xboxen easy to cart around. I need to write up an article about it. Maybe this weekend.

I have one and it is the most amazing damn thing I have ever had. I can play all my internet movies, music files and copy all my games to it making carting my Xboxen easy to cart around. I need to write up an article about it. Maybe this weekend.

feel free to learn more about it here

well there is this project at sf but it doesn't have anything than a bit of protocol discussion - this originated in this thread, but it has been stalled since November.

http://pictures.xbox-scene.com/4/wince/Xbox_wince. JPG
and
http://pictures.xbox-scene.com/4/wince/WindowsCExb ox.jpg

_Michaelangelo_

http://pictures.xbox-scene.com/4/wince/Xbox_wince. JPG
and
http://pictures.xbox-scene.com/4/wince/WindowsCExb ox.jpg

_Michaelangelo_

For those not in the know, if you open the article first, and while viewing it, paste the image URLs (right click -> copy shortcut) in your address/location bar. You must be viewing the article before you paste them in your address bar.

You can't have enough of these, and if you have either a PS2, an XBox, or even just a plain-old DVD player, you do not need to have a separate karaoke machine in your house too.

That said, the PS2 Karaoke Revolution game received the biggest raves and participation from my crowd when compared to the XBox Music Mixer. I think it had to do more with the concept of giving people a reason to grab the microphone and sing -- people weren't trying to sing well, they were just trying to sing to match the scoring indicator (although those who DID sing well scored higher in the game). The fun part was that the game could still be played and be fun (that is, score points) even if you were a really, really bad singer. This, along with the interesting background graphics truly made this a game environment rather than a "who wants to sing" piece. And while the headset microphone is a bit flimsy and not really geared to a human adult head, it served its purpose and didn't really get in the way of the singing-as-game process.

When we switched to the Xbox Music Mixer, it was more of a generic karaoke experience, and therefore a bit of a turnoff for those people who were more shy or uninterested in actually singing. Of course, with the ability to add any number of relatively new XMM songs to the system for $2-a-pop via the Internet, the XMM makes for a valid karaoke machine for those people who don't currently have one.

So what's my plan now?

• I'm certainly going to get any Konami expansion packs for Karaoke Revolution that get released. Yes, the crowd loved this game that much for me to do this.
• I'm going to look into the Code Junkie karaoke package for the PS2 available at my local discount software shop for around $30, featuring 3 CDs of music.
• I'm going to evaluate the concept that some people have of creating their own WMA+G files from their existing karaoke collections for downloading onto the XBox, while shelling out $2/per current song that I can't find on a current karaoke CD.
• And for those times when I don't feel like firing up the PS2 or the XBox to sing karaoke, I'll plop a karaoke DVD in and let people sing along with those -- no karaoke machine is necessary. Now if only I could figure out the best way to pump the DVD audio and a vocal mic through my standard A/V receiver, then I'll have all my bases covered -- suggestions appreciated, although I was just going to hook up my tape deck and plug mics into that, then pressing REC-PAUSE to activate the mics and hope the audio feeds through. Unless I should buy this nifty gadget which seems to address the problem.

This has been already done on the Xbox. Aside from playing awesome PS2 games, a modded Xbox can beat the PSX hands down, at 1/4 the price.

And it has a big hard drive
You can add any size IDE drive to a modded Xbox w/ one of the more recent modchip Bios', 120gb with an older Bios

a network port
Xbox has an nForce chipset. Networked by default.

Divx/OGG from LAN
Already done.

games from LAN
Get PSOne, PS2, and Xbox games from Sharereactor (and Roms).

DVD ripping to HD
Use Dvd2Xbox to rip games.

streaming video via VLC type app
Again, use XBMC

I was sure to find references to my goold old Timex Sinclair 1000, or even my Adam computer, but no! I had to read about Compaq...

Not even a word on the TI 99/4A. Guess I'll have to publish my own list. Actually, I had planned a long time to do a timeline of my computers, see how it respected moore's law. Guess there's no better time then right now to get started.

Correct. And, as far as anyone can tell, the new MS Dash doesn't scan your harddrive for modifications. So as long as your chip is disabled, you should be fine. Watch the news at Xbox-scene. The people there are closely examining this new dash to see what impact it will have on users.

Here's an idea: don't use Xbox Live. Without Live, you have nothing to worry about. Don't plug your Xbox into the internet and don't click on "Play Live" in any game menus. And if you want to play online, there are alternatives.

If playing online means that much to you, stop being so cheap and buy a modchip!

- using tunneling software to play games against friends directly (emulates a direct crossover cable via the internet) - try www.xbox-scene.com for 7 different flavours.

- run linux on the machine and connect it to the internet, then reboot the machine to play a game with the cable still plugged in... (it happens)

That being said, the clever move is to firewall the xbox off at your router from talking to any non-approved IP ranges to stop any 'accidents' happening....

It seems all MS is doing is patching the exploit in the dash... Most Xbox modders knew this was going to happen and said this was going to be a cat-and-mouse game if you threw Live into the mix - they were right. What it boils down to basically is:

If you want Live, use a modchip with a switch or an older Xbox that supports multiple BIOS images on the TSOP, or just an unmodded Xbox.

If you don't care about Live, just flash your TSOP and be done with it.

xbox-scene.com has excellent tutorials on how to get the 007: Agent Under Fire and Mechassult hacks onto an unmodified Xbox using only a memory card, your Xbox joystick and a modified USB cable. The instructions for using these hacks to reflash the TSOP are very easy to follow and accurate for every Xbox version.

I've modded 5 Xboxes by flashing the TSOP so far and haven't had a single problem... If you don't care about Live, it's the easiest and cheapest way to go.

Yeah. That has worked out for them so well.

This post would look much better without the link domains showing.

Yeah. That has worked out for them so well.

This post would look much better without the link domains showing.

Part for part. No variation between XBoxes.

Erm, MS has made Xboxes v1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. Read about the differences.

Since this article lacks any humor, maybe we should start posting some funny signs/symbols of our own. Here is a link to some funny swat team hand jestures:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?act=ST&f= 19 &t=92950&s=56a40001faa4bd14000861cbfa22fc0 2

I ran across a site containing funny interpretations of airplane safety literature but I couldn't find it at the moment.

Actually their is a Playstion emulator for the Xbox available called Pcsxbox and it allows you to play your PS1 games or a shared network connection. You can read about it more here

Xbox-scene mentioned this as well just for this reason.

I bought a v1.1 Xbox off eBay, so I can flash the TSOP bios with one of the cracks. That way, I can play KOTOR and run Linux.

It either requires a 3rd party memory card with a PC uplink connector, or knowing someone with a hacked Xbox who can put the save game on a normal memory card for you. So if you live in a big city you can just swap memory cards at a meeting. Tutorials Here.

If you don't want to be bothered by decoding the files yourself, you can download them here.

you can, but i'm afraid i can't find a tutorial.

xbox-scene is an excellent site for this sort of thing, and have tutorials for pretty much anything you could want to do here but as i said i can't find the one you need. the site is probably still a good place to start looking though, as it has lots of links to other xbox mod sites.

They were idiots for trying to extort MS and claiming that they weren't trying to. Just read the letter, they mention wanting money for this. However, the hack is a good one, and will probably go along very well with the new project going on to hack the original dash.

Can anyone recommend an easy (no-solder), inexpensive, external-switch equipped modchip preloaded with the Cromwell BIOS? :) The external switch would be if I ever decide to buy, rent or borrow an actual XBox game ;)

The no-solder modchips (pogo pins) are bad enough when you keep your unit in one spot, they'll last about as long as a fart in a whirlwind if you use this thing in your car. No way...

Go ahead and get an Xcuter2.x Pro and solder the sucker in. It isn't that hard*, and it will last. Be sure to correctly identify your Xbox prior to purchasing your modchip. The older modchips will not work with the newer xboxes. It should come with the Cromwell BIOS, which should work for what you want to do.

As for the illegit BIOS'es, as long as you don't use your modded Xbox to steal software, I can't see any problem with them (and please don't steal the games, it makes us all look like thieves and it just ain't right).

* John's Xbox modding tip:

When you go to solder in the 11 pin header, as seen here:

(Lookie)

1) Install the header in upside down with the long side of the pins in the board rather than the "right" way.

2) Hold the header out so it just clears the back of the Xbox motherboard and solder a few of the pins in place.

3) Make sure that everything is straight & level and solder the remaining pins in place on the back of the motherboard.

4) Flip the mobo over and now solder the top side of the pins down.

Because the header holes on the Xbox mobo are not thru-plated, you absolutely must have solder on both sides . Fail to do this and the modchip will not work.

By soldering the pins on both sides, you can be sure that there is a good connection before you close up your Xbox.

5) When you are satisfied, gently push the plastic pin holder down so that it is flush with the top of the mobo.

I've done two of these this way now (after having trouble following directions :) and this technique works very well.

Be patient, work in good light, and possibly use a magnifying glass if one is handy and you should do just fine :) Solder the D0 line on the backside (where there is no solder mask to interfere with the soldering) using wirewrap wire if you have some handy (or some other really small wire). Tape the wire down with masking tape.

For modchip recommendations, and all things xbox-modding, visit www.xbox-scene.com.

It's on the front page of xbox-scene right now and here and you can download it here

EvoX and XBox Media Player have turned my XBox into the first Micro$oft product I actually enjoy using! Streaming video, audio, and pictures over my home LAN and playing DVDs without a dongle is awesome! And then, of course, there is the satisfaction of playing Super Mario Brothers and Metroid on a big-old console controller again. Takes me back to 1987!

I'm sure I heard somewhere on Xbox-Scene.com that it was possible to run Windows inside a linux install on an xbox. Not sure if this was just a reference to Wine though..

SAVE THEIR SERVERS: Ok, I've never written a tutorial of any kind in my life... so if this is posted anywhere, you can edit it (to a point ... keep the main writing.. but adding photo's, etc are fine by me, just give me a lil credit) And with that said .. I'll start...

This tutorial will explain how to go about mounting your Xbox HD's game save partition under Linux on a PC, in order to get habibi_xbox's 007:Agent Under Fire game save along with raincoat and your bios of choice onto the Xbox's HD, eliminating the need for a Mega-X-Key!

What you'll need:

Xbox
PC running Linux (distro of choice)
Linux kernel 2.4.20 source ( http://www.kernel.org )
"Kernel" folder from xbox-linux's CVS ( http://xbox-linux.sf.net)
007: Agent Under Fire retail DVD
Soldering Iron + Solder (and torx screw drivers)

*Warning... i installed a fresh copy of Slackware Linux on an old PC just to do this, following this tutorial can cripple your linux system if you don't revert back to your old kernel... or compile a new one... unless you know what your doing*

1st things 1st! Now you must open up your Xbox *which I don't think I need to explain how to do*, take out the motherboard, and solder the 2x2 jumpers (one's on top, ones on the bottom of the mobo) pictures: http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/tsop.php . Now put everything back together, but leave the case top off, and keep the Xbox near your pc!

Now, download the Linux 2.4.20 kernel source from http://www.kernel.org *look in the archives!*, move the tar.gz or tar.bz2 file to /usr/src and extract. This should leave you with a folder named "linux-2.4.20". Next, get the "Kernel" folder from the Xbox-Linux team's CVS *sourceforge tells you how to get on their CVS server... just user kernel as the module name*. After doing so, move the contents of the "kernel" folder to the "linux-2.4.20" folder.

Go into the linux-2.4.20 folder and read the README.xbox file! Follow it's instructions to the point right before compiling the kernel! Next, run "make xconfig" or "make menuconfig" in console while in the folder. Configure the kernel as you normally would *I assume you have some knowledge about Linux*, remove USB support, and turn off all Xbox specific functions... Make sure to leave FatX support in though! When done, run *without quotes* "make dep ; make modules ; make bzImage ; make modules ; make modules_install ; make install" This will automatically do everything needed. Next, shutdown, and use the Xbox HD swap trick to unlock your Xbox's HD and connect it to your PC (Turn on your pc, wait for it to boot RIGHT BEFORE it gets to your Linux boot loader screen press the Pause / Break button. Turn on Xbox, wait for it to boot to the dash, unplug IDE cable from Xbox, connect an IDE cable from your PC into the Xbox's HD and press any key. Your pc should boot as normal, into Linux... except now it see's your Xbox's HD!

*NOW, BACK UP YOUR XBOX HD! MAKE AN IMAGE FILE OF THE HD!!! I don't know the command do to so under linux, but I used HDD Driver under windows to do it ... but seriously, if something goes wrong here, you can be left with a bunk HD if you don't have a backup!*

Now, make a new folder in /mnt (I used /mnt/xbox myself). Now, look in the /dev folder, you should see "hda50 hda51 hda52 hda53, etc..." *it may not be hda, it could be hdb, hdc, or hdd...*. After seeing what block device it is, type this command into console"
mount -t fatx /dev/hda50 /mnt/xbox" ... if it works, you will see no error message. Go into the folder in which you mounted the partition to, and guess what! You should see TDATA and UDATA folders!

Karma whoring LazyBoy

http://www.xbox-scene.com/007linux.txt

Goblin

Well, the box is a Xbox (retail $200). I modded it with an Xecuter 2 Pro mod chip. This gives me the ability to boot up unsigned code (homebrew software). I then use Xbox Media Player to do all media playback (excluding dvd currently) but you can find a program out there called Dvd-X that gives you full DVD playback (or if you bought the special adapter from M$ you can use the defualt DVD player). I dropped a 120GB IBM drive in there, so I have storage for games I copy over and so on. I can play files over the network, and I can stream music from a shoutcast server off the internet. It's a pretty cool little thing.
Good (More) Info can be found at Xbox-scene

Which version are you using? A week ago, I didn't find anyone who got it working with Samba. For instance here.
This solution isn't really a solution, because I need security=user in my LAN.

There was a project to run .xbe executables directly on a PC... don't know if it died or not. Check out xbox-scene, it might still be hanging around.

This chip is pretty much a clone of the much older Matrix / Xodus chip XODUS HOMEPAGE , but without the nicety of not requiring soldering.

The only problem is, to cut costs they ship it without a programmer or any external way to program it at all. This means to program it, you HAVE to boot to it, then flash it using Evolution-X or a similar tool.

The only problem with no external flashing is... what happens if you f**k up a flash? If you can't boot the chip, you can't flash. If you mess up a flash with this chip, you have to just get another one. How annoying is THAT?

Also, it's only 256k, so debug bios's won't work on it. There's also no flash protect (Like the X-Ecutor 2 has), so your chip can be programmed at any time, whether you know it or not. Requires solder AND is only 256k... you get the biggest downsides of Matrix and X-Ecutor 2, but without any of the benefits! For a rundown of current generation 3 modchip, check the reference guide AT XBOX-SCENE.COM. I'd recommend staying away from this one and getting an X-Ecutor 2 lite (flash protect, 1 mbyte flash, easy jumper-based enable/disable)

Ah, whattaheck. Here's a link to a turorial in this reply to:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/tsop.php

Where the arrow is pointing, there are 2 small squares of solder, you want to bridge the 2 squares together by dropping a small amount of solder between them.

[...]

Now do the same for the bottom of the board

[...]

That will enable write access to the tsop.

XboxHacker.net and Xbox-Scene will update you.

The X-ecuter modchip is one (tough) wire, 10 easy solderpoints (no wires, pcb to pcb). You boot the box with the Evo-X cdrw, after that you install what you want via FTP to the box (Evo-X includes an FTPd) and off you go, running everything you want from the harddrive (which you can switch for a new 120Gb if you want).

If you have an EEPRom programmer, you could just make one yourself for about $20.

Otherwise, you can flash a flashrom with an old motherboard.