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Xbox Mod Chip in Beta Testing
Odinson writes: "Well it looks like a modchip design has been completed for the Xbox. The most interesting thing is that 'Modified XBE's and custom code can boot' with the chip The chip costs $65 list in U.S. dollars." Wake me up when standard X86 code can run on the Xbox :)
Someone should attempt this and make it easily available, just to piss microsoft off, by beating them to the punch (for a 'family pc console') on their own Platform!
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
I heard the Xbox has a proprietary DVD player that spins backwards. Sooo.... won't that be a problem in making an Xbox of your very own?
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
for me to buy an xbox. 199 price and mod chips on the horizon, is there anything better?
Yes there is, Halo for the PC... the absence of which is going to force me to buy an xbox.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
200$ for the Xbox, 100$ for the Modchip, Dunno how much for the DVD writer and DVD-Roms...
:/
Guess I'll stick with originals
Anonymous Cowards blow.
You have to really like soldering to do this.
This could be helpful for the Xbox linux project, if x86 code could be run then it will be easy to complete this project.
So, can it be that M$ tries to boost the absymal X-Box sales by cracking their own copy protection?
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. -- Linus Torvalds
Yeah, you might think it is weird, but there are people who actually ENJOY soldering.
;)
29 wires is "warming up" (pun intended
gT, the soldering-iron-trigger-happy freak.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Well, it DOES have an Intel processor (Celeron I think).
Therefore, "standard" x86 code should run just fine.
One only runs into problems when trying to do stuff with the rest of the hardware, since, I imagine, the I/O ports would be different, the memory map is probably different, etc.
Could you use this to make a graphics render farm? A rack of 25 X-Boxes all running Linux - let me see that would cost just $5,000 for the X-Boxes - the same as a high-end graphics PC. That would be sweet - you'd have your own powerful personal render farm and the warm feeling inside from knowing that you've cost Microsoft over a couple of thousand bucks.
Dear Timothy and everyone else,
I consider it a violoation of MIT X Consortium's copyrights and intellectual property to continually lable and presumably agree to the naming convention and usage of the X Box strictly as a utility of instrumentality with disregard to previous works that have been retained by MIT.
An "X Box" is a computing device that provides client or client and server resources within the X Window System. The Letter "X" was brought to you by MIT and it is a violation to use the letter "X" in any advertisement or naming convention of a computing device that does not involve the MIT X Consortium and its intelect.
This is just a notice. If this notice's requirement of cease and desist of practices, within 30 days, involving the terms "X" and "X Box" and "X Terminal" and "X Computing Devices" and "X Console" and not limited to the terms, we shall submit a notarized affidavit and a court order unto you in understanding that you must obey FRC and USC. Thankyou for your time and the clock is ticking. ;)
Sincerely,
Bob Johnson
This is excellent! I can spend $200 on the XBox and $100 on this modchip and $0 on games! This is great because if it wasn't for the modchip I'd spend $200 on the XBox and $0 on the modchip and $0 on the games! Oh wait, that doesn't save me any money. =)
Seriously until there is a game worth playing (let alone worth buying), I won't even pirate on the XBox. My real fear is that a number of people (somewhat like me, but even less honest...I still buy games that I PLAY) have been waiting for a modchip. This will inflate console sales, but still not see a significant increase in game sales. I guess we'll see.
Okay, I get it. It only requires 29 solder points and doesn't screw up your existing games.
But what the fuck does it do?
I own all of my XBox games. I don't pirate.
Why I'm going to mod my xbox is because of the divx/mp3/vcd/svcd/dvd players that are going to be coming out soon.
And it is called "Tribes 2". Even has a linux port.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
And as for microsoft, the standard of console design is to sell the hardware at a loss and make all the money back by forcing you to buy games for a proprietary platform...
Do the math.
$90 GeForce 3 +
$85 733-megahertz (MHz) Intel Pentium III +
$50 (estimate) mobo +
$20 8GB HDD +
$20 NIC +
$20 3D sound card
$30 DVD-ROM
$8 64MB ram
_______________
$323 total. I believe they retail for $199 now
and that's not counting the costs of cabling and controllers... MS will be reamed if modding becomes commonplace... hehe. Score one for the almighty h4x0r.
This one is also real. Heard about them a few weeks ago... Looks identically (Xtender and Enigmah), except that the Xtender has a flash-upgradeable firmware.
...for people who have been downloading x-box games to actually get to play them. for about a month a couple of "groups" have been releasing x-box titles (some of which they say can be played on cd-r's although dvd's are suggested). however, apparently the only systems they work on are x-box "developer" systems (I'm assuming the console that game developers get to test on) and "prototype modchips."
the price does seem a tad high considering what playstation modchips cost now-adays, however, you pay a premium for the newest and it appears that playstation 2 modchips still cost ~$50.
Can anyone please explain what a modchip is,
what it does, and how are you supposed to
install it (do you need to make your own
pcb for a daughtercard, do you need to
unsolder something and then solder this in
place), etc.?
For the record, I have never owned a console or
a console game (nor obviously pirated any) but I
am interested to know what hack value consoles
have in general and in this case Xbox.
First of all, maybe I'm just missing something, but he didn't even mention the graphics card. Second, he didn't say anything about pirating software. Third, he didn't mention anything about thier other products, such as thier various OS offerings. AND FORTH, they DO take a loss on every console sold, because they know they will recoup it with just a few game sales, almost every console ever made has done the exact same thing. Now, how about making a post that is even partially relevant.
Straight x86 code porting is not really well done on XBox Dev. My crew and I spent a few weeks trying to port Linux to the Xbox and we just ran into way too many problems -- including trying to get the Xbox file system to work and destroying one dev unit by formating the drive -- oops. We were able to get a CD demo kernel booted but past that we couldn't do squat - eventually we just gave up.
I would not get your hopes up for an linuXBox any time soon
Since the console is underpriced and the games are overpriced, Microsoft shouldn't even object.
I know MS has made the parts manufacturers "offers they can't refuse," and get deep discounts... However, I think that today's pricewatch prices are quite low compared to wholesale when the Xbox went into production a year or so ago. I guarantee they are not making bank off of those consoles and are probably selling them at a loss. Quite a loss if they're used for number crunching rather than buying Xbox titles.
Still, if you went to build your own boxes with the same specs at any retail chain it would cost substantially more than even the prices I quoted.
Speaking of XBox Hacks and the DCMA. I noticed an MSNBC report that specifically stated the Reuters has used a black marker to circumvent copyright protection - and in fact reported on the Hack - making the step by step procedure for circumventing copyright protection available on the internet.
If the Fed's don't swoop in Janet Reno style and arrest MSNBC and Reuters in general and everybody there in particular, they could and should be accused of inconsistent enforcement of the DMCA.
Article here
(And don't try to kid yourself about MS losing money on the hardware. Every XBox sale brings them one step closer to doing for the game console segment what they did to the PC segment.)
kekeke...pwned, niggajew!!!
What kind of technology goes into designing/building these chips? I mean, having a IC foundry seems like a bit of a bigger step than your normal warezing... are they built with programmable logic (ie. Altera, etc) or what? Or are they really pretty simple?
So much for MS's hardware encryption, finally it got cracked. Expect the site to disappear as soon as MS Lawyer XP slap the DMCA on them. This hack will probably help boost Xbox sales because everyone will be getting one to run a real OS them (assuming that the modchip makes it possible). Is that's good or bad for MS, depends. It will look good on sales figures "Most popular console!", but bad on their bottom line "500,000 game titles and 2 million X-Box consoles sold: $ -100 million profit. Uhm, what was that question, 'what are the 1.5 million owners doing without X-box games?', Uhm...".
Gotta wonder if MS has seen this coming. Their "BIOS" could (and should, IMO) still have a few things up its sleeves, it would be cool if the EEPROM code is self-modifying and can make the modchip useless or blow up the modded Xbox and leave its owner warranty-less? This could be triggered perhaps by instruction codes that can be embedded onto newer game titles.
Have to wonder too, who was behind the design and manufacturing effort, shouldn't it take a lot of money to get ICs printed and tested? I wonder if anyone at Sony HQ spent $100,000 on a "toilet seat" lately.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
if it sounds like crap bet that it is.
xbox lol..... like place'n an x in your crap production facilities brand name makes it sell able...
zbox z about near an alpha owns all intel and amd crud....for sure
wait
hmm forgot to mention that OUR KINDS we are ITS our code makers sew with no less than 3 helixes of living matter,,,so unless u have seen triple helix like things,,,,,
well then 8)
And it would be Reno-time (well I suppose Ashcroft *shudder*) if it weren't for that whole constitution thing we have here in Americaland. Freedom of the press allows the media to break all sorts of laws.
You can get NICs for $10... i'm sure it costs them $3 to $5. The sound also probably costs $3-$5. When you buy parts in the thousands, I'm sure the rest of the components also drop significatnly in price.
My server
DVD Region 4 is Australia and water spins backwards there due to the Coriolis Eeffect (or not). The author implied that this could be applied to DVD's too. Ok, well I thought it was funny.
Perhaps the XBox might be on its way to iOpener-dom thanks to these chips. The macrovision fix and DVD region code fixes especially make this worth the price of admission.
If this works, I might just eat some more words of mine...that I won't buy an XBox but instead look to places like half.com to get a used PS2.
Hopefully work will also continue on indie servers for XBox multiplayer play in spite of MS starting their own network. The XBox was *made* to be a LAN Party box. Microsoft just didn't know it when they were designing it.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Sorry, but I want my Xbox to run PS1, PS2, DC games and any other ROM I can put onto a CD ^__^ The Xbox is a computer, computers emulate very well. Load the emulator onto the HD and bam. Instant near universal game machine.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Since the Xbox runs off of a standard Pentium III, it by definition can do nothing but run x86 code. I think what you're trying to say here is that you want to be waken up when you can run *arbitrary* x86 code. :)
All Hell is going to break loose when it becomes possible to play a CD holding a Divx film on the Xbox.
And here's something I'll bet MS already know: they're going to sell a lot more Xboxes when that happens.
With Divx, you can cram an absolutely fine rip of a DVD onto a single CD-R. That incredibly compact size also means that they only take a few hours to download. The downloadee can then churn out copies for his friend at about 25c a shot, as opposed to $1.50 or whatever for blank DVDs.
The only hurdle to widespread casual distribution channels evolving is that watching films at your workstation is uncomfortable and cabling the signal to your main television is a little too messy, unsightly and expensive for most people.
Find a way for people to play Divx on their Xboxes, however, and the situation reaches the momentum it needs to really take off.
Then the shit will really hit the fan and the studios, the premium channels and Blockbuster all have a HUGE problem.
Which isn't entirely unfunny.
So, is this likely to happen anytime soon? Well, I think this is what they meant on the Xtreme-Xbox site when, while listing this mod chip's features, they stated:
Modified XBE's and custom code can boot (This is a HUGE feature - as you'll all see soon)
I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure that the whole copyright situation is about to explode.
I think your biggest limitations would be the memory available on these. 64MB doesn't hold much of a scene and texture information and swapping out to hard drive completely destroys the fast memory advantage. Still, they might be useful. How about a video encoding farm? 64 MB of frames to each XBox with a few frames of mpeg or divx or whatever coming back?
Maybe someone that knows a bit more about clustering can contribute, after all, this is basically a "Hey, we can make a Beowulf cluster of these after all" kind of post.
Bleh!
Hm.. no domain name, and a subdirectory called goat. No clue what that might be. :)
slashdot!=valid HTML
Nvidia Make a EV6 bus Nforce chipset for the Athlon.
The Xbox has a GTL+ bus Nforce chipset.
The logic on both are the same, the only differance is the main CPU-RAM-chipset bus type.
I think even the joystick ports on the Xbox are just USB ports with a different plug on it.
AFAIK all that needs hacking to load a X86 OS onto it would be its ROM BIOS. Mind you I'd assume only X96 OSes that support the NForce chipset would work.
Which I assume most of the current ones, that is if Nvidia wants to sell many Athlon chipsets.
Yes it would be good to turn a XBox into a x-box, especially with MS subsidising the cost of each Xbos by $200 or something.
This means that I can get an Xbox now not only for the games, but to use as a custom media computer.
Much like the Dreamcast, it will play cds of mp3s, emulators of all sorts, and divx movies. The dreamcast was JUST a bit too slow to make some emulators and divx playback useful, while the Xbox should be the opposite (all the 2d systems should run nicely now).
Yes, I could just build a cheap computer to do this, in fact I have, but having those nice controllers in a relatrively tidy box next to your tube is pretty cool. Not to mention the tv out cards I've used just haven't been that great so far. And for the less computer savvy, being able to pop a divx movie into the xbox drive and have it autoplay is pretty cool.
We're also going to see some cool freeware games on the Xbox. There are a few decent ones on the dreamcast, but since developers can use directx on an x86 architexture, there will be a LOT more on the xbox.
Unfortantely, being able to run unsigned code also means being able to run ripped copies of real xbox games. So piracy will be a big feature of this as well. Not much you can do there.
Ideally someone will develope a hardware-free method of running unsigned code. This would really let grass roots console developement take off.
And yeah -- it will make a pretty cool 200 dollar linux box.
Here in europe, xbox is a flop and people are now lookin at the game cube that has the major advantage to offer great mega hits and wonder games.
MS as usual have forget the most important thing, on a game console what people want is game !
Anyway, landing will be hard for MS.... in europe the've started to cut off their price by nearly 50% !!! But thos things has not have the expected effect, because instead of saying "its cheap let's go-)
4R34'.
It just has to be said... with this and GNU/Linux on it... Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these... *laugh* But seriously, think about it $300 per node? Not that bad!
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Hell.. you can play DivX titles on your $50 Dreamcast (asuming you can still find)...
I believe the URL is www.projectmayo.com
Last time I checked they were at beta 3.
The player has a number of limitations though -- I don't remember the specifics, but you can't go up to full DVD resolution and I think that the bit rate is limited to 700kbs (not high enough for my taste)...
Evolution: love it or leave it
The Xbox has a unified memory architecture, which for those who don't know, means that the cpu and gpu share the same 64M.
Furthermore, the GPU in the Xbox, like the Geforce4, has two programmable vector units. I'm not an Xbox developer, and I havent written any vertex programs yet, but I think it may be possible to use them in custom HPC apps because of the unified mem.
The limiting factor in using Xboxes as cluster nodes to me is the 64M of ram, but there is a spot for another RAM chip (which is used in the Xbox dev kit), so that may be correctable.
As to whether just the 700Mhz cpu, ram, hd and nic are worth it for clustering at $200, I havent done the math, but I would certainly guess so. I cant think of any system I could buy a bunch of identicals of for $200 a piece regardless of speed.
Where they all as informative and insightfull as that warmed over piece of poop?
Freedom of the press allows the media to break all sorts of laws.
I believe the folks over at 2600 magazine would differ with you on that opinion.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
here in Americaland. Freedom of the press allows the media to break all sorts of laws.
There is no difference between Reuters and Joe Bob Smith. The former does not get any extra legal protection, and the latter doesn't have to print a newspaper.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
A lot of people are thinking people will be able to play MAME and the Nesticle stuff on XBox. Even with the modchip, people wont be able to actually burn CDs and do this. The DVD drive on the XBox is so funked out that PC writables wont be able to burn to its specs. You might see some guy in Taiwan come up with a burner that will be compatable and start selling the stuff himself, but other than that a modchip on the XBox is pretty much useless since the drive is yet another lock to bust. And to do that, you'll need hardware on your PC to do it.
You wont be able to do any of what you said unless you replace the actual DVD Rom drive within the Xbox and somehow get the modchip to recognise it as the original. Any media you can burn on your computer simply wont work on the XBox. Not because of the romchip alone, but because of the DVDRom itself. There are many layers of protection that MS made to stop people from doing this. Expect to see replacement drives that spin the correct way for sale with better improved modchips to allow them to work, but that might be a ways off, and you'll end up spending another $200 for it.. Waste of time, IMO.
Halo is pretty bad for a FPS. It's good for a console, but compared to Terminator: Future Shock (Which it ripped off by letting co-op people drive around in vehicals etc), and Half-Life, or any other FPS it is just leagues behind. Halo is nothing special to get worked up about. And honestly I dont know why a single person who has a PC has even liked it.
Nope, you're wrong. Microsoft do make a loss on every xbox, but that doesn't hold true for other manufacturers - even at product launch. You should read Monday Morning CEO If you haven't already for a detailed breakdown on how the economics of selling games consoles works.
Volume is not everything.
Everyone knows you can sell dollars for 98 cents and have HUGE volume, and be 'very close to breaking even'.
Selling a million units at a loss does not look good on paper. If your business model is based on profit via selling games, and you aren't selling them, it looks bad on paper no matter how you slice it.
Way old news, it's been out for over a week. http://xtreme-xbox.net
Another thing to consider is that MS will probably try to tweak future X-box wiring to disable the current modchips. Sure, modchip makers will eventually adapt, but it will be a source of FUD against the whole practice of chip-modding. Basically, what I'm saying is that X-boxes will never be easier to crack than they are now. That's another reason to buy one now. The only problem with the plan is resisting the urge to buy games for it while you're waiting for the right modchip and software to come along. Still, it's possible. Just buy it, stick it in your closet, and take it out when you can cheaply modify it into a living room Linux machine / DivX movie player / downloaded-games machine. Hey, it will cost $199 when all this stuff is ready, and it costs $199 now. Just buy it now!
and it was apparently ignored until it was old news.
www.divineo.net for xbox modchips they carry 2 brands, enigmah and xtender.
alt.binaries.cd.image.xbox
http://www.binnetwork.net/
Sure they do. They'll play CDs just fine, right? So what's the problem here? From what I've been told, the only reason it doesn't play most CD-RWs is that it needs something written to the copywrite track. Anything will do. Granted, all it's looking for right now is Xbox games and music, but if people are going so far as to make Linux platforms out of these things, then this capability can't be that far off. Of course you're SOL on games larger than 650mb, especially since the XBox DVD writes in something like DVD-9(?) You're going to have a tough time finding a commercial burner for that.
Um, who said anything about buying the games? Though admittedly, that's not really too bad of a thing considering quite a few were very enjoyable. Classics even.
because I remember when I was in college working for a production company called "digital fx" (in oregon) we produced all kinds of really complex animations mostly on amiga computers (some running lightwave) - the most memory we had in any machine was 96 megs of ram - most of the computers just had 16 fast.
The most complex scene we made was a chessboard on a coffee table with the camera rotating around some chess pieces that were playing a game - as I recall it took around 72 megs to render and that includes memory needed for the OS.
I think if it was done right 64 megs would be more then enough for most television type applications.
-I heard the Xbox has a proprietary DVD player that spins backwards.-
That's only for people who live south of the equator.
Hahhaha.... quite amusing. For those of you who just thought this was a stupid post it's actually quite funny. You see - south of the equator when you flush the toilet it swirles down counter clockwise because of gravity.
in fact i have yet to see a mainstream console system NOT emulated by the dreamcast (other than the ps2/cube/xbox)
I couldn't find a Nintendo 64 emulator for Dreamcast.
On the other hand, Game Boy Advance is as much a mainstream console as the Super NES ever was, and DreamGBA emulates it on the Dreamcast.
Will I retire or break 10K?
2002-05-06 10:30:25 Xbox Hacked? (articles,games) (rejected)
And this:Many console warez groups have been doing this for a while. The story I submitted even had a link to a video of people playing ripped games but I guess it was to "weak" for the Slashdot editors.
A quote from a console site I visit:
Xtender ModChip Specs!!!!!!
The chip is made up of a lattice chip and an eeprom and is much like the neo4 in design
31 wires
Plays imports and backups
no dvd multiregion
cdrw / dvd-r/ dvdrw work (certain cdr work too)
works on ALL consoles
Get your Unix fortune now!
toilet ... equator ... Coriolis Force
Toilet/Coriolis connection debunked here.
Xbox and GameCube discs spin clockwise just like any other common optical disc (such as a CD, a copy-protected audio disc, or a DVD); they just store their boot blocks on the second layer, which normally starts at the outside of the disc and spirals inward.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Now why the FUCK would I want one of those? How come nobody says what the fucking thing does?
Read the grandparent:
Modified XBE's and custom code can boot (This is a HUGE feature - as you'll all see soon)
This is the milestone. An XBE is the Xbox equivalent of a Win32 EXE or a Linux ELF, that is, a program file. If you can boot a modified program file, then you can potentially make a file called "grub.xbe" that will load the kernel of a free GNU/Linux operating system. This is the approach that this team plans to take.
Will I retire or break 10K?
...but, what family do you know that would be able to sit down in front of any current Linux distro and find it useful?
I know this was modded "funny", so I'm hoping you weren't serious, but I'm just trying to be realistic here for all the "LINUX ON EVERYTHING!" retards out there.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The XBox chip has been out for over a month in Scotland - not even in Beta. Full working lovely 32 wire beast.
Not like you 'merican's to be lagging behind.
G
"It's the early bird that get's the worm, but the second mouse that get's the cheese!"
Putting a dongle between the DVD-ROM and the motherboard technically could allow you to play copies. You can't play unauthorized "games" like Linux this way, because the RSA digital signatures on the games would still be checked. myria
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
... in the long term, aniway.
It is best to try to get the 1024 bit signing key, perhaps by a distributed computing effort.
Yes it's a lot of effort.
Perhaps, we will have to wait the end of the universe. But knowing MicroSoft security track record, I'll not be to surprised if cryptanalysis reveal weaker than 1024.
On a side note, why don't consummer advocate don't act to render illegit technical interoperability restriction?
Not only did they tell you how to do it. Reuters claimed they actually did. They confessed to commiting a felony that carries a five year sentence... and that felony wouldn't be covered by free speech laws.
Whoever wrote that article is a moron. He provides no evidence to suggest that Sony and Nintendo break even on each sale, though he does justify that by saying it, oh, about 25 times (that makes it true, right?). He doesn't take into account the fact that Microsoft also makes a lot of the software, raising the profit they make on a game up from "$5" to probably something closer to $30. Don't believe me that MS makes games? Try Halo. NFL Fever. Fusion Frenzy. Amped. And dozens of others that I haven't yet run out to purchase. But take me. I've bought 4 MS games and 2 third party games. That's [4*30+2*5] $130. So say they lost $100 on each console, and each cusomer buys 7 (the author's assumption) games throughout the course of the console's life. Since over half of the games are written by Microsoft or a company owned by Microsoft, it might be safe to assume that half of the titles purchased would be Microsoft titles. Then you get into the fact that the MS games are better, and it might be possible that someone would buy more than half of their games from MS. Well, then MS is making a profit after 6 titles.
The Monday Morning CEO also neglects to mention the economics of the PS2 and the GameCube, though he does blatantly try to make us believe that they are both making money out the ass. This article is by no means a detailed breakdown of the economics of selling game consoles, it is an article written by somebody that doesn't like Microsoft and has their own website. That, of course, gives them the necessary credentials to be cited all over the internet, right? If you read the "About the Author," this guy doesn't exactly sound like the most qualified person ever. Just because 10 consoles came out while he was counting doesn't mean he had anything to do with them, and he sure as hell had nothing to do with the fact that only two were "major successes." Both of which he inexplicably mentions in his "credentials." And what about his other articles, perhaps they would redeem him? Well, he's written only two other articles, and both of them are over a year old. One article states that "Wireless Blows," and the other article is entitled "You've Got to Spend Money to Lose Money." At first the second sounds as if it might make sense, but the article is nothing but a pitced battle against the old adage, "you've got to spend money to make money." He says nothing new, and all his data could have been gleaned from watching the news a couple of days a week.
Consoles are about the games, pal. People who shun the Xbox because of the manufacturer despite its technological superiority are trying their hardest to be zealous, but trying even harder to justify their (honestly) unjustifiable stand. This article is just one more way for a person to try to justify himself for hating the Xbox. A poor way, but a way nonetheless.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
I do not understand.
biut it doesn't matter you can STILL buy a n64
You can still buy lots of NES consoles on eBay. Nintendo has long used the existence of eBay against the "preservation" and "but piracy of no-longer-available software is fair use" defences. (I'd give you a link, but it appears to have disappeared in the 2001 redesign.)
emulating the c64 would be a wonderful use of new hardware... emulating the n64 would be piracy
Actually both would be piracy, unless you have specific license contracts that state that you may freely copy and redistribute software for the Commodore 64. Unlike patents, copyrights do not expire.
On the other hand, how did Nintendo 64 software developers develop and test their software? Emulation isn't piracy if you own the copyright on what you're emulating. Even Nintendo has recently realized that that highly substantial non-infringing uses for flash cartridges make the flash cartridges in and of themselves no longer illegal, and has removed the "emulators exist ONLY to play pirated games" language from its IP FAQ.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I have to agree with sean23007 on this one.
Sony has admitted to losses on the PSX and PS2 consoles. Nintendo had a loss on each N64, but I'm not sure on the Gamecube. I'd assume they ate it a bit on that one as well.
The reason being that if you're willing to accept a reasonable loss on the hardware you can make it up in two ways:
a) retail sales of games, of which you take a percentage.
b) licensing.
And that's where the real money is.
theyre selling dreamcasts, bundeled with several games and cables and controllers, for as low as 30 bucks... just make sure you get the older dreamcast, as the ones they made just before they stopped completely had problems reading non-dreamcast CDs...
The US should be accused of favoritism.
Printing the procedure for compromising copyrighted CD is the same DMCA felony that the US used to jail Dmitri Skylarv. Now they should treat Reutors the same or apologize to all Russians in general and to Skylarv in particular.
Or somebody explain to me the difference.
Whether the step by step instruction are written in 4th grade english or in postgrad physics is a difference the DMCA doesn't contemplate.
Perhaps the difference is the scope of the problem? For example how many CD's were compromised by Reuters? how many eBooks by elmosoft. I rather think there are more CD's sold by sony than eBook sold by Adobe - so that's not the reason.
The fundamental reason is simple racism. Dmitri was a foreigner - Reuters is a member of the "fourth" branch of government.
Or Bullyism. Dmitri was easy pickings. Arresting foreigners is cheap entertainment. Getting the arrest of a Reuters reporter off the front page would take a nuclear war - and Bush has specifically told Ashcroft he isn't going to start a nuclear war over the DMCA. Oil maybe - but not the DMCA.
it's more accurate to look for the hard drive, memory, an nforce mobo, and processor.
All they did was put the boot sector at the start of the second layer of a dual-layer disc. All dual-layer DVDs have the second layer spiral from the outside-in; the RS in RSDL stands for Reverse Spiral. It makes sense, as when the player reaches the end of layer one the head is going to be on the outside of the disc.
Its the Gamecube, not the X-Box that additionally reverses the layers to the reverse layer is the first one. X-Box discs could be read by a normal DVD drive if it could cope with the encryption (otherwise it would be a real headache for the Box to play 'normal' film DVDs and music CDs), the protection comes from the fact that all currently available DVD-R burners for home use can only write one layer, making them unbootable.
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