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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?"
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.
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.
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.
Show me where I can order a Walmart PC in the Netherlands...
The irony -- admittedly a literary device lost on most SlashDotters -- is that in the console arena, MS is the scrappy underdog. Their presence there is a tremendous boon to game players (ardent 14-year-old PS2 fan boys not included, of course). It is the XBox which is causing $ony to drop prices, expedite online muti-player, and generally just keep in line and look over their shoulder. They have entered an industry in dire need of a competitive shake-up, and are one of the few companies with the resources to be taken seriously by the existing $ony and Nintendo monoliths.
Microsoft Xbox -- it's a Good Thing.
Of course, if you subscribe to the conspiracy theory that 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, a simple discussion regarding game industry economics is probably not going to sway you much...
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.
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.
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.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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 ?
And if your XBox goes bust, you never had a warranty-voiding modification, did you?
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.
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.
Because Microsoft currently makes a significant loss on every console sold. They count on making up that loss through the sale of games. People converting XBoxes into Linux servers do not tend to buy XBox games.
As for raising the price - that will simply stop people buying them. If they become significantly more expensive it becomes cheaper to just buy a PC.