Another Xbox Anatomy Lesson

Keith writes: "Icrontic.com has taken apart, examined, and modified an Xbox. In their latest article, they point out some debugging leads on the Xbox, and a possible USB hack. The Xbox is looking more and more like a PC." A lot of the investigation here is incomplete; watch this space, because it won't be long until Xbox surgery is commonplace.

Comments

A Xbox is just a PC

[SpanishInquisition]

That's what I have to say

Cheap render farms?

[Zergwyn]

The Xbox has some pretty good hardware, and the price is very good. Microsoft is selling it at a loss, I think around $100 per unit(of course, they have plenty of cash so losing money doesn't matter as much as gaining market share). This could make them quite cost effective price/performance wise compared to just buying stuff off the shelf in a cheap pc. I read somewhere awhile back that someone was trying to make it so the PS2 could be used to render stuff, and the Xbox is supposed to have slightly better hardware power. If the Xbox can be hacked to run linux(shouldn't be a big deal, since it is supposed to be a lot like a PC), and get some more connections stuff(like with this USB) then it may be worth getting one/few to connect to a network as an extra GPU. Linux being an OS of choice for the MS Xbox. Mmm, that irony smarts doesn't it...

Port Linux!

[krogoth]

I'm just waiting for someone to port Linux to the X-Box. That would be, without question, the greated console hack ever, difficulty of porting nonwithstanding.