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No-Solder Modchip For The Xbox
toothfish writes "There's a review of the latest generation of Xbox modchip over at xbox hacker- no solder, flashable BIOS, 15 min. install, etc. Stuff like this should make it easier for the average Xbox user to run emulators, Linux, and such. No word if it does or does not work in the latest iteration of Xbox though. Anyone from australia order one of these guys yet?"
Scene Credits goto:
bunnie, for his work on the Xbox Project with his MIT paper
visor, for his work on the LPC Bus
numbnut, for his great work on milksop, cheaplpc and filtror.
I can picture all these think, "oh shit, what sort of trouble am I in now...."
...it won't work. Anyway I think it won't be long until there is one modchip that actually works with xbox. It can't be THAT different as if it was surely there would be compatibility problems.
-- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
For $200 you can get a PC with Linux pre-installed: 800MHz, CD-ROM, 10G disk, 128M. If you want to run Xbox games, get an Xbox, but for everything else, a real PC is probably cheaper and better.
Mod the Xbox? Why would you even want to own it to begin with?
I mean, aside from the chance to play jet set radio future of course.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What a waste of talented people's resources; making linux run on an Xbox is like trying to make a silk stocking out of a sow's arse.
Here's a scenario: Once the xboxes have populated the homes, in no time at all Microsoft will start shipping Microsoft XB to run in the device. This will happen especially if they notice that a competing open source OS has already penetrated their territory. This is just what Microsoft needs to overcome legal battles related to doing it (combining hardware and operating system) and selling it to large public and to win monopoly accusations related to doing it.
When the G spot is reached the LED will flash green immediately, hold firmly and tighten the screw.
ah, you kids. Back in my day we had to find the G spot manually... and we were lucky if we got an audible alert.
!!! Click for the Installation Videos (done by a woman :P ) !!!
Wow, even I can install it then!
I normaly dont post be cause i feel i have nothing that will be of any use to the masses (and dont like t piss people off) but this is my second post in about as many days.. the reason? yet an other error on the main page. the time is in under 15 sec not under 15 min. I personaly doubt it could be done in 15 sec, maybe with case already off and all, but thats not a very good measure of the tru time. people posting on the main page... use the preview button and reread those pages once :-D other than that keep it up... ok back to silently watching from the shadows...
2-3 weeks ago this was news, now it's old news. Anyone interested in the XBox scene would already know all of this stuff, anyone else wouldn't but wouldn't care.
This keeps happening with XBox scene stuff on Slashdot. Don't get me wrong I'd like to read XBox scene news here, it's just always out dated. I mean where is the far more interesting and scene important news week old news that lik-sang appears to have dissapeared along with most of the other hong kong suppliers of mod-chips. Is it just a coincidence that lik-sang had bought the open-xbox assets and was starting to ship and manufacture them just before they dissapeared?
The other thing that always happens here on Slashdot is that people use threads about the XBox to complain about Microsoft in the rabid way that happens more and more often here.
An interesting fact:
Microsoft makes a loss on it's XBox hardware, so buying an XBox and a mod chip and running non-microsoft liscensed software on it costs Microsoft money. They only make money from selling oficial games that of course they make a cut on, if they developed and published the title or not.
So those of us who choose to buy XBox and modchip combinations for developing at home are infact not supporting the all evil corporation but doing them harm. Of course I've also been buying games for my console 'cause there is some great games out there.
I believe the 15 seconds is refering to how long it took to attach the modchip. Previously with solder chips it could take quite a while to correctly make each connection.
I'd really like to find an easy to use set top box.
My mother is basically wheel chair bound, and has visual problems. She watches a lot of TV, and has never used a computer.
She has a WebTV and can surf the web, but her WebTV will not let her watch more than 128K of movies. And I don't believe any WebTV model will. That makes those movies of my kids that much harder to distribute to her.
So I'd like to find a set-top box internet access solution for her. I haven't done a lot of looking, but it seems that the Xbox running Linux with a cordless USB keyboard may be a winning solution.
She could surf the web to see the kids, download and play their movies, print their photographs out, and all from a machine designed to work well with TVs. And when her other grandchildren come over, well they can do the first person shooter thing.
So I have high hopes for this Xbox project. I believe it can really offer a social good to a class of people that don't have a good internet solution.
Then again, if you know of other, better, also inexpensive set top box internet solutions, do let me know.
You don't need a chip at all!
-1 Flamebait (Microsoft just knew we would all bite!)
+1 Interesting (modding xbox is fun to do, fun to do, fun to do!)
-1 Redundant (already got the PS2, why get an XBox?)
Hey, moderators! Mod the XBox!
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
You win! Give this man a prize!
You're right...the X-Box IS an experiment. It is Microsoft's first tentative step towards a completely-locked-down totally Microsoft-controlled PC. The success of the X-Box guarantees this will happen.
Forget about Compaq et al--Microsoft wants to own the hardware, as well as the software. Keep an eye out for it. The second they slap a keyboard, and mouse on the X-Box, the Microsoft PC will be born (and Windows will "suddenly" only work with the Microsoft-certified hardware). It will be completely DRM from the ground up (the X-box already IS).
Folks, supporting the X-Box only brings us closer to the inevitable "darker ages" of home computing (we're already deep inside the dark ages right now, in my opinion).
What we really should be doing is figuring out how to use my existing PC to Play Xbox games...that woul be a much more interesting hack...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
now come on. i can understand the ossasional xbox news item but if I wanted this much irrelevant xbox news I'd jump over to one of the many xbox gaming sites that are around.
do we really need to hear about every time someone makes a new modchip or if microsoft have somehow made them unworkable. This has been going on, on other consoles for as long as I can remember now and I assume it will continue this way.
One chip to rule them, One chip to find them One chip to bring them all and in the darkness (of Microsoft) bind them.
Show me where I can order a Walmart PC in the Netherlands...
They havent made a good game in years.
This must scare the hell out of the XBox group at MS.
The "average" XBox user doesn't care about emulators. Their PC running MAME will be more capable. They sure don't care about running Linux on the XBox - who would, except for geeks looking for a novelty who will boot it once or twice?
The only interest the average XBox user has in this mod-chip is that it makes it easier to pirate games.
When will someone make an ordinary PC for the living room? How about Shuttle? That way, we'd get a box that fits in the entertainment center, is far more powerful than Xbox, and with none of the restrictions.
Firstly, there is not yet an N64 emulator that runs well. There are the preliminaries of a port of Daedalus for the XBox, including a leaked beta binary. It runs so-so because it was still early in development. This is not a comment on the author - I'm sure something will be developed soon that will make the majority of people happy, but don't get your hopes up about emulating all your favorite N64 games just yet.
There is also no PSX emulator yet. You can find the usual hype/marketing ploys on modchip reseller webpages about modchips allowing you to emulate "great systems like SNES, N64, PSX...". Please remember when you read such things that these people want your money. Look into it yourself first. There are no PSX emulators for the XBox yet. I'm sure something will be ported over in the future ( or Linux-on-Xbox will be able to run a linux PSX emu at a decent speed soon).
The good news, however, is that the world of emulation on the XBox is unparalleled on any other console. Here is a list of emulators ported to the XBox which work almost flawlessly:
Stella (Atari 2600)
Gnuboy (Gameboy/Gameboy Color)
FCEUltra (NES)
SMSPlus (GameGear/Sega Master System>
HU-GO (Turbografx-16/PC-Engine)
NeoPop (NeoGeo Pocket Color)
DGen (Sega Genesis)
Bochs (x86)
Bochs emulates the PC architecture and has prebuilt packages for running DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11, and Windows 95. Windows runs too slowly in Bochs to do anything useful, but it runs old DOS games very well.
Snes9x (SNES)
MAME (Arcade machines)
Daedalus (N64)
Frodo (Commodore 64) (url?)
Handy (Atari Lynx) (url?)
GBA (Gameboy Advance) (url?)
Final Burn (Arcade/CPS2 esp) (url?)
Owning a modded XBox allows you to easily play just about all of your console classics on the TV in your living room. (No, not everyone has computers in every room of their house yet. :P ) IMHO, the most fun I've had with my XBox so far is playing games on all of the above emulators. Now that there is a solderless modchip, just about anyone can enjoy them also.
Some of us bought all three of the new consoles (and the Dreamcast, d'oh!) so we could play all the best games regardless of what machine it came on. Not all gamers are brand obsessed fan-boys you know (unless you're talking about 8 bit games in which case its Sinclair all the way) ...
Well, first of all, the new chip doesn't work with the latest boxes that were recently manufactured (in August, I think). This has applied to EVERY OTHER chip that has been released for it (there are plenty). While, I'm sure there will be ways to circumvent this relatively soon, it is still interesting timing to see if this new chip will prompt a buying spree of X-Boxes.
As for the cheap PC vs. X-Box argument, there are many reasons why I have found it useful: Hooks to a TV with progressive scan (there are now patches to enable the DVD and the dashboard menu in progressive mode), Media streaming - the current media player can view streamed video from a host PC or from media on the x-box HD. This works with the x-box remote, and even plays divx. MUCH more seamless than any PC-home theater-type setup. And this is coming from a guy who has had a living room computer hooked up to a home theater for a few years now. This way I don't have to keep a computer in the living room, and I don't have to keep a mouse/keyboard handy to do trivial tasks such as watching a video clip. Emulators are great, and work great with the x-box controller (controller S is actually very nice). A PC is much more tedious to setup, harder to get multi-player configured, and once again requires mouse/keyboard to even startup.
Sorry for the rant, but after all the modding, my X-Box has actually turned into that set-top box everyone was talking about (when coupled with my UltimateTV set, of course). It provides customizability and ease of use that a living room computer simply can't compete with. If you can get over the Microsoft factor, I think anyone would be quite pleased with what has been accomplished in such a short time as compared to a stagnant PS2 development community (grass-roots, not companies trying to make PVR software) trying to play catch-up on such a limited system (even with the Linux kit).
Bill Gates is the Grand Lizard of the Illuminati and that XBox is his tool to effect a plan for World Domination hatched during the Fall of the Knights Templar
I don't believe any of that garbage. I do however feel that giving money to an abusive monopoly is not a good thing. Its your choice. If you bought an XBox, IMO, you did the wrong thing.
And Perfect Dark, one of the best games for N64 ever, has been turned into an anime in the concept shots for the next one. I like anime, but PD was supposed to be a serious game, what happened? Timesplitter 2 is coimg out for GC anyway, so that pretty much covers the bases.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
Without any evidence whatsoever, I think maybe early in Windows history, Microsoft was counting on people stealing Office software from work. I think many people bought Win boxes specifically so they could get software at a five-finger discount. Has anyone investigated this possibility and come up with some data?
Uhm, by default the xbox allows you to rip/play "mp3's" in a way (wma's in reality).
I think your blowing out of proportion your conspiracy theory as ALL consoles use DRM.
Nintendo uses rare miny DVD's, and Sony is known to change things around at will as well.
Even the Dreamcast used the "impossible to crack" GD-ROM's and that was broken.
Just turns out the Xbox seems to have an updateable firmware that can be loaded from games or something similar in which microsoft can adopt fixes/changes necessary to protect the copyrights and value of the xbox.
The Xbox is *NOT* a PC or a test bed to ruin your future PC experiences.
The Xbox is Microsoft's stab at making lots and lots of money in the console industry.
You don't think they're noticing the decline in the PC software sales arena? Console hardware makers get to write themselves blank cheques all the time because of the 3rd-party developers wanting to get a licence + SDK for their platform (most of the time). Look at Nintendo: they make more money than all of Hollywood put together. Look at Sony: their foray into the console industry has given them buckets of cash, so much that they could use US 20$ bills as kindlying around logs of 100$ US bills to heat their mansions, and still have lots of money left over to buy another senator!
Maybe I'm not seeing this DRM angle, or maybe I'm just noticing the much simpler, more reasonable explanation for Microsoft wanting to get into the console industry.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
but, out of the several million xbox owners in the world, there are probably only like 13 people who are willing to compromise xbox online to run some crappy operating system (linux).
The X-Box has fairly good hardware for not being a PC based gaming system or beowulf Linux cluster so why not hack it and run Linux? The beauty of it all is Microsoft LOSES money each time a X-Box is sold. There can be no more beautiful thing in the world then running Linux on a box I know that Microsoft lost money building. :) :)
Besides, I can use these little buggars as disk servers in an array for, say, an e-mail cluster to replace Microsoft's Virus Exchange. Now THAT would be truly beautiful. I'm going to run the idea by my boss now.
Not if you mod it and escape the web that MS has laid for the average gamer.
Can't wait to get my NES and SNES off the gaming shelf, and nicely emulated in the XBox...then I will actually have room there for my XBox.
For christ's sake... its a gaming console, why the hell would anyone want to run linux on it?
Because they want to. Another useless endeavour brought to you by the Open Source Community.
I refuse to believe that it's wrong to buy a product just because the company that made it is a monopoly. If it's a good product, I'm not going to deprive myself of it in some vain effort to "stick it to the man."
I hadn't paid for a microsoft product in about 4 years, but it wasn't because they were an abusive monopoly, it was because they weren't producing anything that I thought was worth the prices they were charging. The xbox changed that. I bought an xbox, and have been satisfied with my purchase.
If you don't agree that the xbox is a good product then that's fine, don't buy it. But that doesn't make it wrong for other people to buy it.
a modchip that doesn't violate the 3rd amendment!
Ms scared? Hardly. You see, in order to use one of those keen mpd chips, you have to buy the XBox. And contary to what a lot of puddingheads keep saying, MS loses a lot less money for each XBox sold than for each XBox not sold. Anyoine who's worked higher up the retail system than sale-floor monkey knows that is is far better to sell off your inventory at a slight loss than to have it piling up in some warehouse.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Buying an XBox to play games, listen to music and whatch DVDs is a valid reason to buy one.
Buying an XBox to rip it open and play around with the hardware, or even get Linux to run on it, is a valid reason to buy one (a silly reason, IMHO, but valid).
Buying an XBox to "stick it to The Man!" is lame. (Unless "The Man" is Sony Inc.)
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
remember when directx was the red headed step child we all loved to bash...now it is the standard, and unfortunatly opengl is losing ground. Give M$ 10 or 15 tries and they will get it right, or at least close to it...
Win2k is an exponential improvement to any M$ OS before. They still have MILES to go mind you but a million Bill Gates pounding on a million keyboards will eventually produce some solid code, and M$ has programmers much brighter than BG working for them.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
When will companies stop dumping R&D into frivilous thinks like updating the console to kill a few modchips. Make the modders have to work for it. Update the CD-unit so that it checks the disc color by scanning some white light from the bottom to check if the disc is from correct territory and what not. If the disc doesn't pass don't spin up at all. Say for instance a narrow frequency band for US region game disc. Calibrating it would be fairly simple as you can attach a standard somewhere for it to calibrate to (though not the correct disc color for your region). I can't think of a more evil thing to do to keep modders from being able to modify the game console. To get it to work for them they have to find the right color combo (annoying as there are some fun tricks you can do with layered light refraction) or modify their disc drive to always spin up, but that would be VERY easy to defeat and expensive if you goof. Honestly what is the point of making a modification to your system setup to try to defeat a group of hackers if you don't make them have to jump through a lot of hoops in the process.
And if your XBox goes bust, you never had a warranty-voiding modification, did you?
I'm reading a large amount of comments about marketting, cost, secret plans, yadda yadda all relating to the cost of an Xbox not being worth what's in it to hack.
Xbox and Gamecube are fighting neck and neck trying to get their marketshare out of the toilet. Together they don't come close to half the PS/2 units out there. A fact that prompted Sony to have a huge banner at the last E3 stating, "The Console Wars are over. We won."
The marketting strategy for these devices is the same. Sell the unit as cheap as you can even below cost becuase you will make it all back because YOU OWN MANUFACTURING OF ALL SOFTWARE. It's the same reason mobile phones will gladly give the phone away for free, it's not where they make the money.
Why doesn't Microsoft get a clue and think for a second. People are buying the Xbox. Why? Some for games. Some for a cheap Linux box.
But the real important issue is this: They are selling Xboxes.
Why doesn't MS just go with the flow and allow the hack? They could bump the price up to a profitable level and sell a few more Boxes.
It doesn't take a Genius to know 2 things.
1)When the hardware is available, a hack is inevitable.
2)With all the people putting time and effort into this, you know you'll have buyers!
Star Pirates
I was working on a screw-in LPC mod based on numbnuts stuff in june/july....
I hacked one together with a bread-board in my basement... I was looking for $$ to manufacture some myself but didnt have any...
looks like the xodus guys are cashing in on about $200,000 right now..
You can get a regular pc w/ wireless keyboard and wireless mouse, and a video card w/ a tv-out jack.
Hook the tv-out and the sound card's output to the tv-set and voila! there's your "set-top" box.
If she's got an old tv, you might need a $25 rf modulator to act as an RCA->Coax adapter. If that's the case, you may also need an s-video->rca adapter for the video ($20 @ Radio Shaft, less elsewhere). Either way, it's a pretty easy thing to do - I just did it yesterday.
-Dan.
Bud, you must have missed out on ethics 101. Right and wrong are a very subjective things. Its all about point of view.
I consider it wrong for anyone to give money to an abusive mafia-like organization like Microsoft, so from my perspective so it _is_ wrong. When you discover a truly objective criteria for right and wrong that we can all agree on, get back to me and I'll check out this moral dilemma there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you mean PS2? I thought PS/2 was a connector for keyboards and mice.
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Excellent,
The sooner Microsoft & al bring about a DRM-enabled PC, the sooner they bring about their own doom.
People will not buy crippled hardware if they are given a choice. At least one smart manufacturer will see its niche in non-DRM generic PC hardware.
Agreed here. When decent Playstation emus came out, I was finally able to play some the games that I'd been itching to get at, but hadn't reached the PC market. If somebody can hack and X-box and/or a PS-2, I'll happily pay the games, but nothign sucks more than having to buy a console just to play 1-2 games.
In another year my PC hardware should be able to dish out almost anything a console of this generation can (playstation games look better in 3d on my 2-yr-old graphics card with an emulator).
1 big concern in PC emulation is 2d graphics. A lot of emulator designers have emus that are awesome for 3d, but crap out when it comes to 2d stuff, even such as simple as text and dialog boxes. Hopefully if an emu is made for X-box, 2d graphics won't fall to the side. As far as the actual console goes, MS could be a good fighter for games. If they're willing to dish out enough money, some seriously awesome games that might otherwise not happen may make it out on X-box.
I am a bit suprised nobody else has mentioned this already, but at least over here in Australia, the games for this machine cost around $90 each, having a console capable of playing & copying games to the internal hard disk as well as the capability to do DivX ;) etc and stream from the network, spending an extra hundred on a console on top of what the cheapest DVD Player costs here ($200) one has see benefits of such a device. While a cheap PC probably would cost the same over there, the same is not true over here & it all fits in a small box which is far more ideal for a lounge room IMHO.
Ok, I suppose I have a good PC at home, with TV-out, DVD burner, etc. It wouldn't be better to make an emulator for linux to play pirated Xbox games rather than try to hack the Xbox? Something like vmware's Xbox. Or even better, a Bootable CD that turns my desktop (or notebook) PC into an Xbox to play from time to time.
That would be more interesting since we all have rather good Pc's laying around.
CCV.
Your right a little bit . Yes PS2 has one this round! But the fact remains the xbox is a superior system with grafix and game play. Ps2 is on there 4th gen. games. Xbox is just starting their 2nd gen of games. and There is a huge difference betweern PS2 allied assualt and XB Halo! Now remember PS2 won't be out till 2005- 2006. And if the basic 1st gen xbox games a killing the Newest Ps2 games who knows for the next 3-4 years. I personallt in america know 4 people who bought xbox's, 0 who bought GC's, and 6 peole who bout PS2's. But of the 6 PS2's 3 of them have gone ahead and bought xbox's. The one problem with the xbox is asia. They are very patriotic. They will buy a Subaru over a Ferrari just because it was made in Japan. Then combines with MS's rep the main argument against the xb is MS itself not the sys. But mabey Xbox will drop the asian market and just stick to the rest of the world with the xb2. Plus MS has a 20 year plan. So the battle won't be over till its the XB4 vrs the PS5. I have an XB and a PS2 and I havn't turned my ps2 in in two months and neither has the 2 other peeps I know with both. So who really knows I'm happy.
Mafia-like???? Cmon what the hell are you talking about? Does MS Loanshark?, take bets?, import drugs?, do we find lots of MS employees in ditches in silocon vally? Yes corprate buisness is not for the light hearted, but looking at enron, red cross, AOL, and a ton of others I say GOOOOOOOO! MS!!!!!! Look at what sony did to the Dream cast. I think that was the best sys for the time and every one ended up waiting 2 years for a supped up Dreamcast(PS2)!
The Greatest Mathematical Error
The Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on 28
July 1962 towards Venus. After 13 minutes' flight a booster engine would
give acceleration up to 25,820 mph; after 44 minutes 9,800 solar cells
would unfold; after 80 days a computer would calculate the final course
corrections and after 100 days the craft would cirlce the unknown planet,
scanning the mysterious cloud in which it is bathed.
However, with an efficiency that is truly heartening, Mariner I
plunged into the Atlantic Ocean only four minutes after takeoff.
Inquiries later revealed that a minus sign had been omitted from
the instructions fed into the computer. "It was human error", a launch
spokesman said.
This minus sign cost L4,280,000.
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
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