Homer: Here's good news! According to this eye-catching article, SAT scores are declining at a slower rate! Lisa: Dad, I think this paper is a flimsy hodgepodge of pie graphs, factoids and Larry King. Homer: Hey, this is the only paper in America that's not afraid to tell the truth, that everything is just fine.
The guy's got a point. Wait till Dell runs a sale and you can score a P-4 2.x GHz machine loaded, for about $450, sans monitor. That's just over $100 more than the X-Box, and look at the difference. Of course, that would make this whole 'Hacking the X-Box' appear to be a worthless waste of time...
-video out quality isn't as good (nvidia's video out sucks, ati's is good but not as good as xbox) -it's louder -it's bigger -it doesn't fit in with your other home entertainment stuff -no optical digital output -no rgb output -slower boot time
If you want to spend 5-600$ or so for a loaded shuttle XPC (i got the nforce one) and another 100$ for a scan converter with component output, another 100$ for swank logitech wireless keyboard and optical mouse, then you'll have something worth comparing. This is almost exactly what I have, and it's nice. My only main complaint is the noise of the fan, but I have it hidden under my home entertainment system.
But saying a cheap system will do the same is naive.
I got a PC with an Athlon 1700+, 20 GB HD, and 128 MB or RAM for $250, and about $30 of that was shipping. You can even upgrade to a real video card(integrated shared vram by default) cheaper than the $336 they estimate.
Hacking the XBox can hardly be called "a worthless waste of time." Anytime a person has enough curiousity and know-how to crack open the case of a computer/appliance/gadget; ESPECIALLY one manufactured by such a hated company as Microsoft; and tinker around with it to gain a better understanding of the device or to improve/change its function is NOT A WASTE OF TIME.
We need more curious minded people if we are ever going to grow as a society. We need to understand the computers and devices that we depend on in the 21st century. Otherwise we be just as better off in the Dark Ages.
BYOPC, otherwise entitled How A Starving College Paid Less For More
Case $42 Foxconn 350W w/ USB ports Mobo $70 Asus A7N266-VM AA Proc $50 AMD Athlon XP 1700+ HSF $12 CPU Fan Diamond 2000 RAM $50 PNY 256 MB DDR 266
-coupon -$15
-MIR -$30 HDD $120 Maxtor 120 GB 7200 RPM
-coupon -$20
-MIR -$40
-refund -$25 for late delivery CDRW $60 Lite-On 52x24x52 CD-RW
-MIR -$50 Kybd $20 Microsoft Internet Keyboard
-refund -$20 for late delivery
Total: $224
Yes, I already had a mouse, so that didn't cost anything. The steals really were the Ram ($5) and the CDRW ($10) - a top of the line Lite-On burner. Most stuff was ordered online from Staples or Newegg. Staples ALWAYS phucks up delivery but usually it only takes an hour for them to pay for their mistakes. Newegg on the other hand despite being ~1000 miles away gets stuff here the 2nd day after I order.
I've since upgraded to a AMD 2.4 GHz and 2x512 RAM for fairly cheap by selling the family my parts and buying new ones. Oh and $40 for a Lite-On DVD-ROM. Got a 17" CRT for about $100 after rebate and I'm pretty happy. Now if I can just find a deal on an LCD...
Re:or...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You forgot something there though...
curious minded people are terrorists, and
curious terrorists should be minded. Thus, hack the xbox, go to prison, and get ass raped over and over again.
the ONE thing that made me get my shuttle over many of the other brands was the nforce2. this gives me: -amd chip (not a p4 board) -onboard networking -onboard dolby digital 5.1 sound (best sound i've heard, actually) -onboard gf4mx, so I'm playing games on it without upgrading vga card yet -agp slot so i can upgrade video later
It would appear to be a worthless waste of time if you didn't want to also use it as an Xbox. Even so it isn't really, the portability makes it attractive, as you can treat it like just another home stereo item.
Also, as I have pointed out elsewhere; If you're going to hack it you need to open it, which invalidates your warranty. You might as well get a used xbox for $130 or refurb for $150; I don't know if those prices have gone down since the Xbox dropped to $180. A used Xbox is at least $50 cheaper than a new one, and if you're not going to use the controller (perhaps even cutting up the cable in order to make your adapter to plug in a USB hub) then you won't care that it's not the newer Controller S, which can save you some money.
So; You don't need a modchip if you rent that 007 game, you can get a used one; That's $70 off the listed price. You could get a cheaper hard disk, too, or just not bother to get one, and read everything across the network, that will save you $120, for $190 off the $336, which brings us to $146. I bet for $200 you could also get a (crappy but functional) wireless USB-connected keyboard/mouse in there if you found a deal, but let's call it $250 for a decent one. That's a pretty good price on a box like that, which incidentally is STILL an Xbox, which has some value of its own IMO.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
At first I though about building my own, but the parts+shipping actually came out cheaper for the prebuilt systems, but then again I didn't vigourously look for the cheapest price for each individual part, and I don't really care for amil in rebates.
"Hacking the XBox can hardly be called "a worthless waste of time."
If this were about unique hardware like the PS2 or the GameCube, I'd agree with you. However, the XBOX is a PC. There's no value in tinkering here, worse there's no killer app that justifies 'fair use' of it. The only one that immediately pops into mind is a DivX movie player. Doh, we're treading into pirate waters here, doubtful the court'll support that.
Until there's that must have app that the XBOX runs best, every attempt to hack the XBOX makes the DMCA feel even more important to corporations and even potentially in the eyes of the law. It's not worth tinkering with. Pissing off Microsoft and strengthening the need for the DMCA is a waste of time. Sorry. Civilization will not come crashing down if the XBOX isn't hacked.
-- "Derp de derp."
Re:or...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"-video out quality isn't as good (nvidia's video out sucks, ati's is good but not as good as xbox)"
Do you realize that Xbox uses a NVidia GPU? If the video-out of graphic cards using NVidia GPU sucks, then it's the board manufacturers fault.
Re:or...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
um some of us just wanted to play Halo and the Xbox was only $179 here in Texas, same as my PS2
But buying a computer from Dell doesn't cost Microsoft $100. Buying and modding the X-Box does. Sounds worth it to me.
Why teh X-Box sucks
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
ATTENTION PEOPLE: This is not bashing, this is bashing for a reason. I'm not gonna say XBOX sucks and that's it. I am gonna proove what i have to say with actual reasons. You are entitled to your own opinion, but then again so am I.
Now to get on with my post, the first place to start off is the origin of the XBOX. When the PS2 was announced at E3, the president of Sony made some remark about the PS2 being able to take over the "living room". Microsoft got scared by that. Hence the first problem. The living room was never Microsoft's territory to begin with, so why start now? Sony was not making any direct threats, it was all just hype. But nooonooonoooo Microsoft won't belive that. So they hire their engineers to make a system cobbled together out of (then) brand new PC parts and a EXTREMELY powerful GPU (graphics processing unit.) This was the next fact, whereas console technology only advances every 3-5 years, PC technology can be considered obsolete as soon as you get it. Since the XBOX was a long time in development, XBOX was not the most powerful gaming device but rather 2nd place to a high end Alienware desktop.
Now that we have the origins over with I would like to point out specific weakneses of the system.
First of all, let's talk about graphics. While the XBOX's graphics are impressive to some, the NVIDIA GPU makes them all look like Quake 2. Except for Splinter Cell, but that looks like Quake 3. Unlike the anti-aliased graphics of Super Mario Sunshine (it looks like a CGI movie) we get graphics that look like a 3 year old PC. To be fair, the XBOX has some good looking games, but that brings me to the next point: gameplay.
While the XBOX has some good looking games, they are PC games through and through. Most of them have great graphics but convoluted and contrived gameplay that feels like a rehash of a Quake style PC game. The controller doesnt help matters either because the Model 1 controller is too bigi and bulky to actually be responsive. Which is another trend in the PC industry. To be fair however they did release the Controller S and you can get a VERY small controller called MicroCon. Also the games, theyre not just shooters, but shooters and sports. Rally racing, football, basketball, you name it in the sports catergory, they have it. Racing and sports + shooters= Only %10 of the console audience satisfied.
I would like to hear what you folks have to say on the matter, but please try to act civilized. It helps no one to act like "dood U suk Cuz you L1K3 Xb0x" or "P$2 r0xOrs" or "GODAMN YOU YOU SUCK I'M GONNA RIP YOUR BALLS OFF!". It only makes you look stupid. Let's represent our favorite consoles with the diginty and respect they deserve by stating our points in a calm and respectful manner. AWW WHAT THE **** AM I SAYING? XBOX SUCKS!
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
porkface
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· Score: 4, Interesting
My Xbox games from launch look better than even the newest games on my PS2 and Gamecube.
Xbox has had well documented periods where no good new games were released, but that's not a reason why the Xbox itself sucks. I've managed to find enough good (some great) games to make my Xbox purchase worth my while. Halo, for example, while being released before level design was finished, is still a smashing game. It single handedly proved FPSes can be great on a console.
Maybe I'm happy because I fall into that 10% catagory you mention, but to be fair, Nintendo has historically done a far worse job of making games for a wide audience than what Microsoft has done here, and Nintendo STILL has a long way to go. And Microsoft has some good MMORPG and RPG shit coming to help the cause. So sure Sony is the leader in game variety and overall game quality, but Microsoft isn't the runt of the litter by any means. Lack of games isn't all that big a deal for Xbox owners.
Online gameplay. Xbox Live wins hands down. At least Sony did SOMETHING, and that something works, but it's not on the same level.
So I fail to see how you can say the Xbox sucks so badly when it has the best hardware, and the best online setup. You didn't make very many points for me to draw comparisons on, but that's what I got. And your comparison of the Xbox to an Alienware isn't of interest to me. I can't Jabba The Hut it on the couch with an Alienware. Furthermore, that's apples and oranges.
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Have you tried Enter the Matrix?
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
AvantLegion
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· Score: 1
This was the next fact, whereas console technology only advances every 3-5 years, PC technology can be considered obsolete as soon as you get it. Since the XBOX was a long time in development, XBOX was not the most powerful gaming device but rather 2nd place to a high end Alienware desktop.
There is no point in this statement. If the Xbox didn't exist, then one of the other consoles would hold this "2nd place" of shame.
While the XBOX has some good looking games, they are PC games through and through.
Spoken like someone that hasn't played Panzer Dragoon Orta, Jet Set Radio Future, Shenmue 2, MechAssault, the Sega sports games, etc. etc. etc. etc.
because the Model 1 controller is too bigi and bulky to actually be responsive.
Not for those of us that don't have midget hands.
Racing and sports + shooters= Only %10 of the console audience satisfied.
Pure ignorance. These two genres account for a huge percentage of console game sales.
You cleverly leave out how the Xbox has far and away the most advanced online element of any console (PC included, in many regards - at least until every gamer uses the same IM client and installs and runs Roger Wilco and all online games communicate through the same listing base).
Racing and sports + shooters= Only %10 of the console audience satisfied.
Pure ignorance. These two genres account for a huge percentage of console game sales.
That being said, I'd like to see more RTS type games come to consoles. I enjoy games like StarCraft and Age of Empires, they are one of the reasons I keep a PC around.
-- "For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
AvantLegion
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· Score: 1
That being said, I'd like to see more RTS type games come to consoles. I enjoy games like StarCraft and Age of Empires, they are one of the reasons I keep a PC around.
These sorts of games do not work very well on consoles.
The problem is twofold. First off, a game controller is very poor in controlling these games. They are far more dependent on mouse-and-keyboard than even 1st person shooters.
Second, RTS games require displaying lots of small units on the screen. On a PC monitor, particularly at 1024x768 and higher, this is achieved nicely. On a standard TV, the lack of sharpness and clarity really hinders things.
I think HDTV will effectively eliminate the second problem. For the first, I think console manufacturers are going to have to realize something: in order to diversify the games, there needs to be more forms of *standard* controllers (if the only options are 3rd party, or they are not standard from the get-go, they will not succeed. If a console RELEASED with gamepad AND keyboard/mouse control (even if the keyboard/mouse combo wasn't included, but was widely available for a reasonable price), then we would see the success of other genres like RTS on consoles.
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
For what its worth, I think the Dreamcast had keyboards and mice at launch time - the web-browser which shipped with them had support for both peripherals. That said, I've never owned either, I use a pair of PS/2->Dreamcast adapters to type and mouse with.
Despite this, I don't recall seeing many Dreamcast RTS'. In fact, short of Dune 2 and Command and Conquer for Playstation, I can't recall seeing any console RTS' anywhere! It seems Turn Based Strategy games like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics rule the roost in console land.
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
Entropy_ah
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It single handedly proved FPSes can be great on a console. no, goldeneye 007 for the n64 proved that. ask any college student
-- my other penis is a vagina
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
AvantLegion
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· Score: 1
The Dreamcast keyboards were incredibly hard to find - I know, I got one.
As rare as the keyboards were, the Dreamcast mice were even more impossible to find.
Most stores didn't even start carrying the keyboard until after NFL2K1 came out - and even then, they were an absolute biatch to find.
"My Xbox games from launch look better than even the newest games on my PS2 and Gamecube."
Aside from Halo, which games are these? Shrek, Fusion Frenzy, or Oddworld. (I disagree about Halo, but every time I discuss the Xbox with an Xbox fan, they rave about it) Seriously, the only other game I can imagine you talking about here is DOA and that's one game in a pack of awful.
--
"If the good lord had intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates." -Willy Wonka
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
DC keyboards and mice were not hard to find, at least not in my area. You can still go get a DC keyboard for $10 at EB or Software Etc.
The thing that comes to my mind here are games that are on both consoles...the one I've played with most recently is Splinter Cell. Its out for both the XBox and PS2, and the PS2 version looks pretty poor when you compare screenshots side by side.
Although I couldn't find exact matches for screenshots, you can tell there is a big difference between the graphics these two consoles can put out.
Or you can just goto gamespot and check both versions and compare shots. I'm sure the game is still fun on the PS2 (because it's not grahpics that make the game good, hopefully (: ), but I hope this answers a little bit of your question about "which games are these?" (:
I don't have a console at all, I like the PC version of Splinter Cell myself (;
--
Yuma, AZ...You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.
Re:Why teh X-Box sucks
by
AvantLegion
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· Score: 1
They were impossible to find in my area - central California. I remember reading all sorts of "where can I find a keyboard???" letters showing up in the Dreamcast IGN mailbag.
The keyboard and mouse were never pushed as an essential item. Few games took advantage of them. Until online games came out, a year after the system's release, the keyboard and mouse were treated as utilities for the web browser, and little more.
To get back to my original points, the Dreamcast still suffered from problem #2 that I outlined - so even the existence of a mouse/keyboard combo (somewhat low production or otherwise) does not address the other glaring problem hindering RTS games on consoles.
To a degree, but in the long run if people don't buy them they won't make any, and thusly they won't lose any money. So it's a bit more complex than that.
-- "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
Re:Are MS
by
AvantLegion
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· Score: 2, Interesting
.... still losing money on each of these things?
Yes they are... just like they are with every other MS product except Office and Windows. Funny enough, it doesn't seem to hurt them too much...
Re:Are MS
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Nintendo also sells at a loss and Sony sold playstations at a loss for a long time before they got dominance
I think that MS doesn't sell no more at loss now. I think, tht their production cost have fallen under the actual price tag they sell them. To try to explain that: Take a price of the greatest PC when the X-Box was out. Take the price of this same PC now. Calculate the price drop of the PC (in percent) and apply it to the X-box...
I really doubt it. Maybe at first, but they've had over a year to cost reduce these things. If they're still losing money, it sure isn't $100 a unit.
I've worked on projects where we've rushed something out the door, at a loss, to be first to the market. After the initial release, the engineering efforts turn to cost reduction. I've seen costs drop by 50% after two or three revisions. First you get the product working, and then you bring costs down.
Do you have to mod in order to emulate? I'm currently longing for a "plug into the tv and it works" solution to run MAME. How did you do this for the xbox (I'm assuming you're using MAME)?
What?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Troll
The Xbox is being hacked so it can be used for more than playing video games.
I don't like the portrayal that people are "hacking" (in the media term) their XBOXes.. I'd call it unleashing hidden features.
I agree. This is a genuine hack. If I have to get out my soldering iron and toolkit... it's a hack.
Re:What?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I thought USA Today was one for the first media companies to release an article on "Yes, we know the difference of hackers and crackers"....
So, maybe this writer actually means "hack"... ?
Re:What?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You have no idea what an actual hacker does, do you?
Re:What?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
analysts say the company has so far tolerated the Xbox hacking as an unavoidable nuisance.
I'm so happy that Microsoft has decided to mostly "tolerate" people doing what they like with the products that they own. Is it just me or is the world of what's legal and what isn't just getting stupider every single day?
The Most Interesting Quote...
by
$$$$$exyGal
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· Score: 5, Interesting
The most interesting quote from the article:
Microsoft's attempt to "lock down" the Xbox's parts is a prelude to using similar techniques to keep PCs from running anything but Windows.
Could this really happen? How would Microsoft deny having a monopoly if they went this route?
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Microsoft don't deny having a monopoly.. they lost in court on that battle, remember?
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
they have made steps towards this idea. im not sure of tech based approaches. but licensing is one method, the windows license is tired to the machine AND the machine is tied to the license. the latter is important, but it hasnt been heavily adopted though.
or my personal favorite for school volume licensing: "total up all PC's and Macs" thats the number of Windows (not office) licenses you need to buy to be complient.
hmmm, wtf? of course it would be funny if you legally had to pay for the macs too, call up Microsoft tech support and demand help with installing XP on a mac.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
lvdrproject
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· Score: 1
Heh, you haven't been here for the last 5 years, have you? Come on, i know you have. Have you really not been paying attention at all?:/
This is exactly the same notion behind Palladium and such initiatives that Microsoft intends on pushing. It certainly could really happen, in theory, but only time will tell if that's actually the case. If you want more information, Google for "Microsoft Palladium"; you're no doubt going to find thousands of articles/comments/whatever written by (mostly) Linux guys, which go through the possibilities quite extensively. Actually, you don't even have to leave Slashdot to find that. Just use Slashdot's search engine to search for "Palladium".
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Cuz money 0wnz3r5 your lawmakers.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
HeelToe
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Could this really happen? How would Microsoft deny having a monopoly if they went this route?
With the Bush administration in power they don't have to worry about denying any monopoly. No one in the justice department cares.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
NanoGator
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· Score: 1
"Could this really happen? How would Microsoft deny having a monopoly if they went this route? "
I have a better question: How could MS actually pull that off?
The answer? They can't. They can make a line of PC's that runs only Windows, and that'd be perfectly fair. They can't make every PC Windows only unless they got both AMD and Intel into it. If that ever happened, MS wouldn't be the one to be mad at. Intel and AMD both would have some s'plainin to do.
-- "Derp de derp."
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Same way Clinton denied getting a hummer in the oval office?
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
Babbster
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"Could" it happen? Sure. Is it going to happen? I don't know and neither does the person quoted. Every argument like this smacks to me of someone who simply wants to justify doing whatever s/he wants to do. It's like people arguing that they download MP3s because CDs are too expensive - if a CD is too expensive to purchase, how does that give you the right to steal it (yes, I use the word "steal" despite all the arguments about copyright being civil law and that copying supposedly isn't the same as stealing).
That's not to say that I think people shouldn't be able to mod their Xboxen. As long as the person modding isn't pirating software then I myself don't see the big deal. But that quote from the article reads like the kind of paranoid spouting off that we read every day from posters on Slashdot...to those people, EVERYTHING is a "slippery slope."
The truth is that I think Microsoft wants to "lock down" the Xbox hardware so that people can't play pirated games and not as some sort of diabolical plot that has something to do with Windows, Office and the Illuminati. I consider their stance on this matter reasonable (though maybe not defensible) considering that any money they make from the Xbox comes from software licensing.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Still around, eh Krout? Fucking moron.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
shione
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· Score: 1
you'll find lots of old articles but for the new ones you have to use 'next-generation secure computing base' Mickey$oft gave it a new name after receiving all that negative press.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
shione
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· Score: 1
But being a monopoly isn't illegal, its abusing the powers you have as a monopoly that is. And thats what mickey$oft has done and is still doing. But I agree with your thoughts, if Clintons party had won, gate's ass would be grass.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
AMD and Intel are already on board with Palladium. That's just the first step.
Re:The Most Interesting Quote...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Consider this -- Microsoft Windows 2000 pro retails at $200, and Office 200 retails around $200 as well. Even with OEM "white-box" discounts, the cost of MS's flagship softwares is probably more expensive than a computer (reference the numerous postings about building boxes for under $400).
Thus, would it not behoove Microsoft to offer a $100 rebate on anyone who purchased secured hardware that would enforce everyone buying their software? Come on. The math is easy. When it comes to buying computers, if you can save 33% on the hardware through the rebate program, get *secured* hardware, and run Microsoft programs--this is corporate IT's dream scenario. Who would buy Linux or unsecured hardware?!
Summary: there is no need for collusion with AMD and Intel, or the PC manufacturers. Only rebates managed by MS are required.
Yes, screwing themselves over. The best part is, no matter what they do, they just can't win. I'm sure we could make it run GL, but nVidia would have to make the drivers(they won't though), and they aren't giving the specs out anytime soon.
Best Xbox hacking device
by
SharpFang
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· Score: 5, Funny
Yeah, $336 is nice for a PC and all, now if it can just be hacked to play video games, I'm sold!!
-- We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
$336 with a 120GB disk
by
drinkypoo
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Which is unnecessary and/or overkill for most applications. The 8GB disk will fulfill most users' needs because their media library can be stored on their PC (A more logical place for a large expensive disk than a cheapass little piece of consumer trash - I like my Xbox a lot but I don't think I necessarily trust it.)
Make that more like $236, with no disk upgrade, which as I mentioned before is unnecessary. Actually, I think it will cost you a little MORE than that, though. It's $30 for a decent modchip, something that's updatable from a CD. You also have to pay shipping on cables to hook up USB, or you have to make cables out of Xbox extension cables and USB extension cables, which probably ain't much cheaper. Also, to get digital audio out of it you have to spend another $20. (That also gets you S-Video, though, it even comes with an S-Video cable to get you started... it's lousy but it works.)
Then again, you can get an Xbox used for $130. So maybe it's actually not so expensive. Why buy an Xbox with a warranty if you're just going to void it anyway?
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:$336 with a 120GB disk
by
loucura!
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· Score: 5, Informative
You don't need the modchip though, you just need a copy of 007:something or another, and you can buffer-overflow your way into it.
You can also, after using the buffer-overflow exploit upgrade the firmware in the bios by soldering two of the pins (I'm no X-Box hacker, so I'll not try to say which). So, you won't need a modchip.
You can get the 007 game at blockbuster for five bucks...
-- Black and grey are both shades of white.
Re:$336 with a 120GB disk
by
SharpFang
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Why buy an Xbox with a warranty if you're just going to void it anyway?
Maybe because if there IS warranty, you may be pretty sure the box is not broken? But in the other hand, you can buy an used Xbox with a warranty that's about-to-expire and get just enough time to test if you should make use of the warranty and take the xbox to service or void it safely...
You can also, after using the buffer-overflow exploit upgrade the firmware in the bios by soldering two of the pins (I'm no X-Box hacker, so I'll not try to say which). So, you won't need a modchip.
Sorry dude, but you have to short the two points BEFORE you can flash the original BIOS, even when using the buffer overflow. It is physically impossible to flash the BIOS on the xbox without shorting the two points.
As you have to open the xbox and short the two points anyways, you might as well just try to borrow the matrix modchip. This chip allows you to flash the orginial BIOS, without having to solder one single point (you just have to screw a component onto the motherboard).
Ofcourse, if you ask me, get a modchip instead of flashing the original BIOS.
All we need know is for a bootloader for the xbox. I hate having to swap HD's when I wanna run linux instead of Evo-X.
Why buy an Xbox with a warranty if you're just going to void it anyway?
You're probably right but saying 'doing X voids the warranty' doesn't make it so. It depends what you do, of course, but claiming that 'opening the box voids the warranty' is BS. In a lot of jurisdictions, it counts as tying of service to the original manufacturer, which is a big no-no.
Hackers use Xbox for more than games By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY SEATTLE -- Microsoft's strategy of selling the Xbox, its video game console, at a loss has wrought an unforeseen consequence. Some users increasingly view the Xbox as a cheap appliance easily rigged to operate as a fully functioning personal computer.
The Xbox is being hacked so it can be used for more than playing video games. By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY
Forget zapping aliens. Thousands are souping up their Xboxes to house movies and music, serve up Web pages, even write software. All it takes is a few hundred dollars and free tip sheets on the Web.
Microsoft's news Wednesday that it is dropping the price of a new Xbox $20 to $180 could drive more users to give it a try.
The software giant views the $100 or so it loses on each Xbox as the price of entry to compete against Sony's dominant PlayStation 2 gaming console. While it says it will attack hackers on a case-by-case basis, analysts say the company has so far tolerated the Xbox hacking as an unavoidable nuisance. "I don't think they see it as a major threat," says Jay Horwitz, game analyst at Jupiter Research.
Not just for games
In part, he says, that may be because the activities are relegated to the tech savvy, a small part of all Xbox users. It's also not a new problem. Shortly after Xbox hit stores in November 2001, hackers set to work cracking the technology intended to restrict the Xbox to playing Xbox games.
But it does highlight the complexity of Microsoft's struggles to make its products more secure. Because Xbox has so much capability, hackers have found it works well as:
Media hubs. Unlike a PC tower, the compact Xbox fits well next to the TV. By adding a start-up chip and a bigger hard drive, the Xbox morphs into an inexpensive media center for storing and playing a vast amount of games, movies and music. The TV screen serves as a monitor.
XboxHacker.com, one of several Web sites packed with information on building Xbox media hubs, logs 8,000 visitors a week. "It's like putting custom parts on your car," says Webmaster Ken Robinson, a dockworker and amateur programmer in Federal Way, Wash.
Linux PCs. A group called the Xbox Linux Project advocates bypassing the Xbox's Windows operating system and replacing it with the free Linux operating system. This lets users run a wide variety of free software. More than 150,000 copies of Linux for the Xbox have been downloaded, says founder Michael Steil, a computer science student from Munich, Germany.
Linux is continually improved by volunteer programmers worldwide, and Microsoft considers it to be one of its biggest competitive threats. Steil says Linux Xboxes are being increasingly used as Web-site servers and to write new Linux programs.
Web tunnels. Microsoft charges gamers $4 a month to use Xbox Live, its fledgling online gaming service. It hopes to add more subscribers and raise the fee. But GameSpy.com and XBConnect.com offer free "tunneling" software that lets Xbox gamers interact with each other online using unmodified Xboxes. GameSpy President Jonathan Epstein said it took technicians just two days after the Xbox went on sale to create the first Xbox Internet tunnel. "We did it to show we're really cool technologists," Epstein says. While some Xbox hacking -- copying games, for one -- is illegal, tunneling, installing Linux and building media hubs fall into the gray area of what rights owners have to change a technology once they've paid for it.
Microsoft is pursuing several initiatives that could make it illegal to tamper with hardware embedded with certain security codes.
In addition to saying it'll stop illegal hacking, Microsoft also warns that opening the Xbox -- required to install hardware -- voids the warranty. "We're very committed to respecting the intellectual property rights of others, and we request the same respect for our innovations and those of our partners," says J. Allard, Xbox platform vice president.
"We're very committed to respecting the intellectual property rights of others" said J. Allard from Microsoft.
This guy must be a new hire who skipped employee orientation or something. Did anyone else feel the need to laugh when they read that?
Standard corporate doublespeak.
Translated it means:
"Abortions for some, miniature American flags for
others" or maybe "Mod an XBox and the terrorists
win". I'm not quite sure which, as I'm only a 3rd
level corporate drone.
--
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Re:Full text...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Mods should be marking these posts as trolls or something. Does anybody REALLY think usatoday is going to get slashdoted? cnet? wired? etc... For a no-name tiny site, post away. But posting from a large site is just pointless. Not to mention those sites have real legal teams who could start harrasing slashdot for copyright infringement.
Re:Full text...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Microsoft is pursuing several initiatives that could make it illegal to tamper with hardware embedded with certain security codes. isn't sad that when a buisiness model doesn't work out, companies react by changing the law, instead of rethinking their buisiness model?
"We're very committed to respecting the intellectual property rights of others"
Sounds exactly like something MS would say to me. Others is obviously refering to the people who own the "intellectual property".
Else he would have said "We're very committed to respecting the user's rights to use others intellectual property". Or something to that effect--Which would be odd for someone from MS to say.
Re:Full text...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I like what the competition is doing. Sony decided to go along with the idea of running Linux on their console, and even offers their own 'hack' to run Linux on the PS2. http://playstation2-linux.com/ http://us.pl aystation.com/purchase/hardware/ Sony's kit is $200 in addition to the PS2. Also, since it's not x86 hardware, you would need to compile from source any new software you want to install, and you might have trouble getting some stuff to work. Like the X-box hack, if it's a Linux PC you want, there are better and cheaper ways to get one. On the other hand, if you've already got the PS2 console, $200 ain't much to add on 'Media Center' functionality, web browsing and email on the TV, etc. The kit also comes with the ethernet adapter you need for online gaming.
USA TODAY "research"
by
Alpha_Nerd
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Just because there's been 150,000 copies donloaded doesn't mean 150,000 XBoxen have been modded. I'm sure there's people who have downloaded it and not installed it(I do that to software often =/)and on the flip side I'm sure there's peopel who DL it and install on multiple. I'd take a guess and say the former is more common than the latter.
And to the idiot that said XBox games look like Quake 2, well you're just that - an idiot. The XBox is the technically superior system. It also IMO has the best controler - too bad it's games suck =/
The only good Xbox controller is the small version first sold to the Japanese market. The old "big" controllers were awful.
I agree that the Xbox games selection leaves something to be desired.
Re:USA TODAY "research"
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TheNetAvenger
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The small 's' controller is now standard in new XBox machines sold in the US now. It has been for quite a while.
I also prefer the smaller S controller, and you can trade in your 'big' original controller and pick up an 'S' controller for not much money.
Go to someplace like GameCrazy (in most hollywood Video stores) and trade in the 'Big' controller for credit towards the 'S' controller.
I traded in my PS1 with a few games and had enough credit to get a Refurbished XBOX with 1 year no question GameCrazy warranty and a couple of games.
BTW Buffy, Halo, and Castle Wolfenstein on the XBOX look and play awesome.
Wolfenstein is well done, taking advantage of the XBox's graphics and is so smooth and fluid, reminded me of the good old Doom days on a descent PC. (Except the graphics now look almost real.)
Re:USA TODAY "research"
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Just because there's been 150,000 copies donloaded doesn't mean 150,000 XBoxen have been modded. I'm sure there's people who have downloaded it and not installed it..
I'd guess the actual number of people running Xbox Linux regularly is somewhere between 8 and 14.
I hate the controllers for the xbox. They are too big, and it's difficult to hold them. I would use my PS2 controllers with the xbox if msoft wouldn't have released the small controllers. The SNES controllers were good, and the PS2 controllers are not too bad... but xbox, the controllers suxx!
The following is being offered free of charge to all those who feel the need to troll the Slashdot Games section. newsgroup. Please print out a copy and keep it with you at all times. If you follow these simple steps, you trolling is guaranteed to improve.
If a game is currently on PS2 and there are plans to bring it out on the Xbox, make sure to claim that no one will want to play that game by the time it gets to the Xbox. For example, by the time Virtua Fighter 4/GTA3 comes to the Xbox, we'll all be playing something new.
Use the reverse logic if it is a game only on the Xbox that may be ported to other systems/PC later. Case in point, Halo. Say something to the effect of "I'll wait for the true version of Halo on the PC". "It will be much better than the Xbox version".
Constantly complain about FPS on consoles ACCEPT for Goldeneye.
Always use Bill Gates name. Act as if he is the one making the games. By all means, if you run out of clever or interesting things to troll about, just bring up Mr Gates. Lots of people hate him and will be glad to agree with you.
Complain about the XBox controller. Even if you have never seen or used it, it won't matter. People will believe you when you say it's big. Be sure and try to provide a testimonial about your wife or girlfriend or kid who complains about the size of it. Also claiming to be injured by the controller can be the foundation of a great troll post.
When referring to the Xbox, try to scew the name a bit. Xblox, eggs bocks, the stupider the name, the more favorable of a response you will get.
Be sure and mention Japanese and European sales numbers. If you aren't sure what those sales numbers are, go ahead and make something up. Estimate low, most people will believe you.
Although Xbox owners seem to enjoy there games, make sure to comment on Xbox not having any games with good gameplay. Although the Xbox does share some ports with PS2 and Gamecube, it's okay to assume that the Xbox version of those ports has poor gameplay as well.
Since the Xbox has nice graphics, be sure and find a way to put a negative spin on this. Using the age old formula that states if a game has nice graphics, it must have terrible gameplay, you can convince people that Xbox games are all tech demos.
Defective Xbox stories are excellent to use in trolling. The best part is that they require no proof. I find that "the screen just froze up" works great. Occasionally you can use something really bizarre like "My friend bought an Xbox and it caught on fire and burned down there house. Now they are homeless. F*** Bill Gates."
When all else fails, lie. There are lots of people who will agree with you just because they hate MS.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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drewbradford
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
My friend bought an Xbox and it caught on fire and burned down there house. Now they are homeless. F*** Bill Gates.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You forgot.
12. ??? 13. Profit
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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gergi
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· Score: 1, Troll
not a troll but the following are true... re: # 3 - not all FPS on consoles EXCEPT (;-)) goldeneye are crap but many are. however, Goldeneye and Timesplitters 2 are both great and metroid prime (more of an adventure game that happens to be from the 1st person) is absolutely incredible. on the other hand, the "pride" of the xbox is Halo which i have played and have no desire to play again... very boring, very generic, etc and see #10 # 5 - the controller IS huge and very hard to use. especially compared to the ps2 dual shock and the brilliantly designed gamecube controller. #7 - XBox is 2nd in the US and 3rd worldwide. It's not selling well. It's outsold many weeks by the PSOne in Japan. #8 - The only good games for the XBox are out for the other systems, except for Halo which i was not impressed with #10 - A buddy bought an Xbox while I was visiting and picked up Halo and and an NHL game (dont' remember which one). No doubt, the graphics looked great (but don't they look great on all the systems?). We decided to stop playing though when the Xbox started crashing consistently. The screen just froze. This happened roughly 5-10 minutes into each game. Needless to say, my buddy returned it and picked up a Gamecube.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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UserChrisCanter4
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The only good games for the XBox are out for the other systems, except for Halo which i was not impressed with
I own all three of the current-gen systems, and every one of the XBox games I own are "XBox-exclusive". Halo is a great game, but you might also check out Buffy (basically a 3D Double Dragon with a decent storyline), Panzer Dragoon, Jet Grind Radio, Mech Assault, and Dead or Alive 3 (if fighting games are your thing).
Dead or Alive 3 was the only game I was interested in at launch (I was a fan of the prior games), and I put off buying the XBox until early last summer. Although I'd still recommend a GC or PS2 to someone who only wants one console (A PS2 would be my first inclination), the Xbox is a really solid game machine.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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Psychor
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· Score: 5, Funny
I bought an Xblox the other day, and I wish I hadn't. I guess the poor sales number should have warned me (since they only sold 3000 EggsBlockses in Europe, and 12 in Japan). I don't know what Bill Gates was thinking when he designed the controller, but it really hurts my hands. It's way too big!
I was playing a game with it once, and it started vibrating, jumped right out of my hands, and severely wounded a small child. Also, it's strained my fingers so much, I'm starting to have problems 'viewing' my Natalie Portman image collection! I'm going to sue Bill Gates!
Sure, some of the games may have nice graphics, but the gameplay is absolutely shocking. I tried to play Halo, but it's nothing but a tech demo! You may not believe this, but it's actually impossible to shoot! I played for five minutes, and couldn't kill anything at all, so I took the game back to the shop. It has nothing on Goldeneye. I'm going to wait for the PC version, which should be much better.
Also, my son really wanted me to buy a console, so that he could play GTA3, so imagine my surprise when I found out it was not yet released on the Xbox! He had to undergo therapy for several weeks - but I'll get the money back from Bill Gates when I sue him.
I'm going to sell my XSocks on Ebay now. It'll probably cost me a lot in shipping, because it's really heavy. Bill Gates designed it that way, because he likes to hit immigrants over the head with his. I'll never buy another M$ product!
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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TheNetAvenger
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· Score: 2, Interesting
#3 You haven't played Castle Wolfenstein on the XBOX - obviously. Halo is a great game with great game play, especially in the upper levels with vehicles.
#5 The Original controller is large, but it is NO longer being shipped with XBoxes, they moved to the S Controller like 8 months ago. And again, if you already have the large controller, trade it for an S controller at any GameCrazy for a few dollars difference.
#7 This is a first version console, of course it will lag in sales compared to two console makers that have dominated the market since the mid 80s. But considering it is out selling GameCube, the former US leader, is quite a good sign.
#8 Buffy is great XBox game available no where else, the moves, fighting and character play are truly above most games. Also Kung Fu Chaos and several other titles are out there that are XBox Only.
You will also see several XBox and PC only games - XBOX being the only console release. (Hence XBox game development is just an expansion of DirectX for Windows - so of course there are many PC XBox cross overs - it is very easy for developers to make a PC game and basically add the XBox interface requirements to it.)
Also notice that many of the 'better' games being released are coming out on the XBox months before they are being released on other platforms. Castle Wolfenstein is out for XBox, and just now getting ready for release on PS2 (with quite a drop in frame rate and graphics on the PS2 as well)
#10 Having a good friend that is in the Gamer world professionally, I have heard of a few XBox with bad DVD drives. The lockups are from the drive having trouble reading the disk. Trust me it is not the Win2k core crashing. And it is still better than the number of people he has encountered that have had their PS2's literally catch on fire. (No joke)
Hope your 'friend' enjoys their GameCube, they have several nice titles, but playing a game like BaldersGate on the GameCube after playing it on the XBox made me realize how slow the GameCube can be, and how much graphic detail is lost.
The same can be said for cross plat titles that I have played on XBox and then play on the PS2, the graphics are usually lower quality, the load times are 5 times longer than the XBox and even the frame rates suffer on high polygon scenes. Reference Enter the Matrix for a good example, the PS2 version is jerky, and the scene load times are terrible. It is just too bad they textured the game at the PS2 level and not the XBox level, it could have looked more impressive with by taking advantage of the XBox's graphics capabilities. Even Buffy has better graphics and gameplay, but whoops, it is an XBox only title.:)
BTW, since my friend 'is' in the gamer business, I have all three systems. So I have no 'proud owner' bias. The XBox is by far ahead of the other two in performance, graphics, and gameplay.
#8 - The only good games for the XBox are out for the other systems, except for Halo which i was not impressed with so the only good game on the xbox, you weren't impressed with?
#10 - A buddy bought an Xbox while I was visiting and picked up Halo and and an NHL game (dont' remember which one). No doubt, the graphics looked great (but don't they look great on all the systems?). We decided to stop playing though when the Xbox started crashing consistently. The screen just froze. This happened roughly 5-10 minutes into each game. Needless to say, my buddy returned it and picked up a Gamecube.... on which it never crashed? damn you xboxeggsbox!
my thoughts... The xbox pad isnt too bad, until you find you have to completley shift both hands to use the DPad. The xbox itself is very loud, in our room at work, 5 pc's, 4 tv's, 4 ps2's, 2 gamecubes, and the xbox is the loudest thing in the room!
12. The games are too hard for children to play. Of course, adults are the target audience, so I guess that kind of follows.
-- Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
by
Malcontent
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· Score: 0, Redundant
There is no need to any of that. Just point out that buying an Xbox makes the richest man in the world even richer. Buying an xbox helps MS destroy competitors, helps them fight open source, helps them destory other software and hardware manufacturers.
Truth is always more powerful then anything else.
--
War is necrophilia.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Maybe if you had some dexterity you wouldn't have a problem with the controller.
#3 Halo is generic? Just one query on this... in what way? The AI is cool (although could be improved), the vehicles work like a dream without dominating gameplay. And yes, I DO know they repeated some sections of levels.
#5 Long Live Huge Controllers! Personally I bought one of the smaller controllers and found that my hands started to cramp up into claws after five minutes use. Too big for the japanese market possibly, but keep churning them out please MS, I need them!
#8 Project Gotham Racing, Amped, Dead or Alive 3, surely at least one of these must rate a "good" off you?
3- Well, then don't. If you don't like it, it's not a game for you. But realize that there's a big difference between you not liking a game and a game being poor.
5- The controller is huge and then there's the other controller that's not. Both of them cause me less handcramps than a ps2 controller. And I like my gamecube controller but I wouldn't call it brilliant. The buttons are difficult to use on sports games and anything not designed by Miyamoto. The z button sucks.
7- The xbox is second in US and 3rd worldwide. Actually, I believe it's 2nd worldwide now. I don't know the numbers and I don't want to get into a stats war. But last I heard, companies weren't dropping support for the xbox like they were dropping support for gamecube (e.g., Sega Sports).
8- Each of the systems has games that are exclusive and are great. Ps2 has GTAIII. That won't be exclusive forever. Nintendo has Metroid and Zelda, both phenomenal games. Xbox has halo, doa3, etc. The only clear winner there in exclusive quality content is Nintendo, but the dropoff after that for Nintendo is huge. There isn't much else besides the big 3 that I'd consider buying for my cube. Also, there are a lot of great games out there on all 3 platforms. The xbox versions consistently rate better in head to head coverage because the box just has more horsepower and features built in. Check out ign if you don't believe me.
I think people need to realize that if they don't like a game it doesn't mean it sucks. That if they have one system, the others don't automatically suck. And that there's a hell of a lot out there more worthy of their loyalty then freaking game consoles.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
by
earthforce_1
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· Score: 1
Actually, despite some people here thinking I am an anti-MS fundster, I still give MS their due - I like most of their hardware - I am using a MS optical mouse right now. The X box hackers must agree with me, or why would they bother? They want the MS hardware, plus the freedom to do what they want with it. MS office suites are quite good, and WinXP is a lot more stable than Win9x. I just don't like their product licencing and the lack of freedom that goes along with it. Also, I wouldn't dream of using WinCE on any embedded SW project. Absolutely the wrong tool for the job.
#7 This is a first version console, of course it will lag in sales compared to two console makers that have dominated the market since the mid 80s. But considering it is out selling GameCube, the former US leader, is quite a good sign.
of the 3 console makers today, there is only 1 that made a console in the mid 80's: nintendo. sony entered the market with the psx in '95 ('94 in japan).
btw, your comment about baldur's gate is completely wrong. the company that ported it did a very poor job and didn't optimize the code at all. i will say however that the game plays just fine, just not as smooth as it could be.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
by
blincoln
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· Score: 3, Insightful
#8 - The only good games for the XBox are out for the other systems,
No. Steel Battalion is reason enough to own an XBox, and it will never be released for anything else.
-- "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
If I might be bold enough to offer another number for your list:
10.5. Be sure to mention that you bought an Xbox but then traded or sold it so you could get a PS2 or Gamecube because there just weren't any games. Everyone will believe that you know what you're talking about since you owned one (haha) in the past.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The PS2 is louder than the Xbox mr troll.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Shut the fuck up.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"People will believe you when you say it's big. Be sure and try to provide a testimonial about your wife or girlfriend or kid who complains about the size of it."
...isn't this beside the point? The rest of your comment was talking about xbox, right?
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Turth does hurt doesn't it.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Constantly complain about FPS on consoles ACCEPT for Goldeneye
If you're going to emphasize a word by putting it in all-caps, at least use the correct word. =P
Otherwise, an excellent post.
Re:X-Box Troll Handbook
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
you forgot to mention that you need to have a good forum full of people who mod trolls up for irrevelent posts.
I believe all of these should fall into the "fair use" catagory. If Microsoft doesn't interfere with any of this alleged "illegal hacking" projects, they could sell those Xboxes like hot cakes. More people would buy them since they'll have more than one use. Since more people would buy an Xbox to say run Linux on them or what not, they could also use it to play games! That way games will be sold and Microsoft would make money of it since the publishers have to pay a royalts to MS.
Also, whatever you do to the Xbox should be considered fair use. When you mess with the hardware, all that MS should be able to do is deny you warrany. Car manufacturers already do this. Think of the people that modify their cars and put in turbos and superchargers. If/when their engine craps out, the dealership or whatever doesn't have to cover anything since what you did to your car has voided your warrany.
My point is MS has no right to take any legal action against any of these "illegal hacking" projects and should just leave them alone. Fair use is fair use.
Re:Fair Use
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I believe all of these should fall into the "fair use" catagory.
What does "fair use" mean in the context of hardware? In copyright law, you own a copy of the item, not the item itself. You can do whatever you want with your copy except making duplicates. "Fair use" covers some exclusions to that rule.
When you buy an xbox, that xbox becomes your property. Corporations cannot (or rather, should not be able to) tell you what you can and can't do with your property. There is no need for "fair use" because you own the thing. Everything is fair use.
(obviously, ianal)
this is the subject line
by
deadsaijinx*
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· Score: 4, Funny
1) sell at great loss to undercut competition 2) still not beat competition 3) ??? 4) total domination and billions of $$$
i REEEEAALLLY wish i knew step 3
-- YOU SUCK BALLS!
Re:this is the subject line
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0vi_king
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· Score: 1
Forcing OS and Office upgrades every couple of years is step 3....And you don't have to get caught up in the game, but if you want to "play" you have to.
-- - Life is what keeps you occupied while you are waiting to die
Re:this is the subject line
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TheRaven64
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· Score: 1
i REEEEAALLLY wish i knew step 3
Get an iMac. Then you will see that there is no step 3.
Re:this is the subject line
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
i think step 3 is loby until every law you could dream of gets passed
Re:this is the subject line
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
XBox is beating the Gamecube in worldwide marketshare, so step 2 is wrong.
Re:this is the subject line
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
3) Repeat for two more versions.
Know your history.
Re:this is the subject line
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NanoGator
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· Score: 1
"i REEEEAALLLY wish i knew step 3 "
I hear ya buddy. The XBOX has proven that MS can't create a monopoly without support of the consumer. Kinda deflates a lot of the "but the findings of fact say..." crap that flies around here. (To be fair, the final judgement should have done that, but suddenly everybody involved got selective about what to quote.)
-- "Derp de derp."
Re:this is the subject line
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
All of the game consoles are sold at a loss. PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, whatever. The profit comes from software sales.
Re:this is the subject line
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Of course you can give points back. You just did so, by posting here and cenceling your moderation.
-- It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Bold+Marauder
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· Score: 3, Informative
which runs the Linux OS can be had from wal-mart for >$100 less.
I'm sorry, I don't see the appeal of this?
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
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InvaderXimian
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The Xbox is actually a much better machine than those computers found in Wal-Mart. Hell, even the graphics card itself is faster than most of the CPUs inside the Wal-Mart computers.
The appeal behind all of this is that because MS released a "locked down" computer, please wanted to circumvent around those security devices and prove something to other. Also, its fun, you can show off, and its a good time waster.
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Twister002
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· Score: 4, Insightful
and you'll have a point once you are able to run Xbox games natively in Linux.
Right now, the biggest complaint about Linux is "not enough games" (ok, maybe not the biggest, but one of the reasons that a lot of people are dual-booting). Once you can install Linux on your gaming console (PS2 or Xbox) you remove that reason for dual-booting. Now you've got a functioning Linux PC that you can reboot and use to play games with.
What's the difference between that and dual-booting? Well for one thing you only have to maintain one OS installation instead of 2.
-- "For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
I find it strange that people actually buy into the crap that says modifying something you purchased is "illegal". Implying that modifying the XBox is illegal is like implying that it is illegal to upgrade the video card in your PC.
It is just amazing to me that there are people who base their ethical and moral evaluations based on what corperations say. Can you say "Baaaa"?
NR
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
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Bold+Marauder
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· Score: 1
I find it strange that people actually buy into the crap that says modifying something you purchased is "illegal". It's called 'legally binding contractual agreements'. You'll learn about them when you turn 18.
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
When I go to the store and purchase an XBox, there is no contractual agreement between me and anyone - unless of course I purchase on layaway or something but not in this case. The only time there could be a "legally binding agreement" is if I signed something or clicked "I Agree" on an EULA. There of course is no such thing in this case. There is the binding contract of warranty that is probably inside of the box, which by modifying the equipment you break that agreement and they are no longer required to waranty the item.
So, I guess you haven't turned 18 yet. Either that or you are halucinating.
NR
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
that's what i was just thinking about.
once my money goes into microsofts hand why should they care what i do with their product.
i guess they're afraid of piracy because you need a mod chip to do all of this.
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Tenebrious1
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· Score: 4, Insightful
which runs the Linux OS can be had from wal-mart for >$100 less.
I'm sorry, I don't see the appeal of this?
Not that we haven't gone over this a thousand times on/., but:
XBox- Great graphics to a TV (which most people already have). Great stereo output.
WalMart PC- crappy video, crappy sound, cheap components all around. Still need to buy a monitor. Only available through mail order, that's at least $30 shipping (plus tax since Wal-Mart has a physical presence in your state). Doesn't fit in TV console, doesn't look good sitting on top of VCR. Doesn't play DVDs. Doesn't play xbox games. Doesn't play many games at all. Need to get IR mouse/kb or you can't use it from the couch.
You're probably too young to remember this, but the reasons the Commodore 64 sold so well was it was much cheaper than other computers, but mostly because you could plug it right into the TV. The IBM PCjr selling for $1000 was too expensive for most people, but a C64 and tape drive could be had for $200 (or less!) and plugged right into the TV. That's what introduced millions of us to computers- the fact we didn't need to buy an expensive monitor. And the awesome COLOR graphics, sound, the the sheer number of games available, put the C64 into many homes. Oh, and most retailers were willing to sell the C64 at a loss to get customers in to buy the accessories and games.
If MS were to market a "game" that consisted of Windows, Word and Excel, with a cheap xbox printer, I think it could create a HUGE market for the xbox, similar what happened with the C64.
-- -- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Jagen
·
· Score: 1
It's called 'legally binding contractual agreements'.
You mean those things you dont have to sign and dont exist between microsoft and yourself when you purchase an xbox?
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
MisterFancypants
·
· Score: 1
Once you open the wrapping, you've agreed to the contract. You may think that sucks, but that's how the contract is worded and so far no challenge to such contracts has ever legally been successful in the US. It may not be 'right', but its the law of the land as it currently stands.
Maybe you'll understand when you turn 18.
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Maybe you'll understand when you turn 18.
Maybe you can get off the age thing; you don't even have any idea what my age is. I simply don't understand the obsession.
That said, I don't think there can be a legal agreement made between two people where one person is unaware of the agreement. To be binding the packaging would have to say something to that effect.
I would also like to see a copy, or quote, of this "contract" you guys obviously know so much about - being mature adults and all.
NR
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Gogo+Dodo
·
· Score: 1
The "appeal" is that the hackers can screw over "the Man."
One doesn't brag about breaking a Wal-Mart white box. Now if you broke a Microsoft product, you brag about that.
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
drinkypoo
·
· Score: 1
Incidentally, using an Xbox for a linux box is (ostensibly) legal if you install the cromwell linux BIOS, so that you are not using a hacked version of Microsoft code (The BIOS.)
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Actually, the issue is market control. If they can regulate the systems that may be run on the hardware they can regulate where you get those systems, how much they cost, and just about everything about running programs on that hardware. If you have the freedom to run anything you want on it, which you currently do, then they have no control over the amount they can charge you for your software - because if they charge too much you can go somewhere else.
NR
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
If people want to spend $200 to try and damage W. Gates & Co to the tune of $100, wouldn't it be much more effective to put all these $200 amounts into a sinking fund and pay someone to go and break a few legs?
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
NanoGator
·
· Score: 1
"The Xbox is actually a much better machine than those computers found in Wal-Mart. Hell, even the graphics card itself is faster than most of the CPUs inside the Wal-Mart computers. "
The graphics card in the XBOX is 100% useless unless it's playing XBOX games. So why hack it? Who's going to write an unpublished game that'll wow you graphics-wise? PC games will never work on it, not enough RAM.
So besides getting MS on the side of DMCA style legislation, what exactly is being accomplished?
-- "Derp de derp."
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Ignore the poster. Everyone knows that Bold Marauder is a relentless pedophile who cannot keep his hands off of boyscouts. Of course he likes to hide behind a thin veneer of ultra-patriotic nationalism and likes to spew forth comments brimming with right wing christian predjudice, don't let that fool you! He loves the boy anus and will do anything to get it!
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Bold Marauder signed a legally binding contractual agreement saying that it was O.K. for him to rape young boys but that it was not okay for young boys to fuck him. What is up with that!!! Someone needs to call the ACLU and get a lawyer for all of these poor kids that Bold Marauder keeps on buggering!
Also, Bold Marauder, I read your X-Files slash fan fiction and found it totally sub par. Most slash fan fic authors agree that Mulder is only there to be abused sexually, by skinner with his monster cock or by Dana Scully with here strap-on. Your making Mulder into the on-top sexual protagonist was awkward at best. It was obviously a piece of Mary Jane fan-fic where you imagined yourself to be the one getting probed by mulder. You should be ashamed and you never should have posted such trash on the web.
Re:Meanwhile, a LEGAL and FUNCTIONAL PC
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
What the hell are you talking about?
Xbox games will never run natively in linux, by definition. If what you mean is "when Xbox games are ported to linux" don't hold your breath for that either.
I think the biggest complaints about "linux" are still things like hardware compatibility,.so hell, and package maintanance. I've rarely heard anybody object to running linux because they can't play a particular Windows game, and haven't run across anybody insane enough to say "I can't play my xbox games on linux so phooey!" I hope I never meet anybody that insane, that's along the lines of "I can't make pizza in a DVD player."
A PS2 costs (here) $200, plays PS2 games and DVDs and can be hooked up to a huge TV. That's Good. To make it run Linux and do anything useful, you need to add storage, network card, input devices, and run a hacked up linux kernel designed to design games. So you probably spend at least $600 on a crappy PS2 linux box. That's GAY.
A Microtel PC with 1.1ghz Duron, 128mb ram, and 10 gig hard drive is $200. You can install a full linux distro and hook it up to a cheap monitor. That's Good. To make it a good game box you need an expensive graphics card, more memory, controllers, and probably Windows. You've probably spent $600 after upgrades for a crappy gaming box. That's GAY.
Don't be gay. Buy a console for console games, and buy PCs according to what you want to do with them. If you try to make your PC a console, or a console a PC, it's just going to result in some suckage ratio of cost money/work poorly.
You expect them to compete fairly?
by
Viewsonic
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Of course they're losing money for every unit sold. In some countries this is called "dumping" which is illegal. I'm curious why no one has spanked them on this issue. Nintendo has always stated that their systsme costs under 100 to make, and no one really knows about Sony, but it's safe to assume they're making a profit as well.
Re:You expect them to compete fairly?
by
GMontag
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
As far as getting spanked for spiking or dumping, that is an international trade issue and is only brought up when the country getting the dumped goods complains/puts up trade barriers.
I don't really know of anything in the US that prevents having a loss-leader ofr a product line (but there may be something out there).
Even GM did it with their X-body(?) cars in the 80's. If you bought one "base" it cost you less than it cost them. As soon as you started adding options (including GMAC financing), they started running a profit.
Re:You expect them to compete fairly?
by
timothy_m_smith
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· Score: 1
dumping is when a company is selling their product at a loss AND well below market price in order to beat the competition. microsoft is not dumping b/c they are selling at a loss just to remain price competitive with nintendo and sony. if they were selling at $50, that might be dumping.
Re:You expect them to compete fairly?
by
donutello
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· Score: 1
Selling at a loss is not "dumping". If it were, RedHat, Amazon, VA Linux etc. would all have their boards in prison on federal racketeering charges.
-- Mmmm.. Donuts
Re:You expect them to compete fairly?
by
NanoGator
·
· Score: 1
"Of course they're losing money for every unit sold. In some countries this is called "dumping" which is illegal."
It's more complicated than that. If it weren't, Sony would have been 'spanked' for both the PS1 and 2.
-- "Derp de derp."
you fail it
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
now we know what to expect from a SPIC!!!:)
IN SOVIET RUSSIA...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
XBOX HACKS YOU!!!
Denying monopoly
by
TrekkieGod
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
How would Microsoft deny having a monopoly if they went this route?
By replacing the words "lock down" with "trusted computing"
--
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
$336 gets you a complete system from Dell.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
More storage, memory and speed, and apps to boot. even if you hate Windows (though I don't know why), you can throw on something else. No hacking needed. I've even seen PowerEdge systems in the $260 range.
Re:$336 gets you a complete system from Dell.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Where do you see this? I looked on Dell's website and the cheapest was $499. I just want a system that's at least 800mhz with tv out for a mythtv front end. I could care less about memory/hd/3d/etc.
Re:$336 gets you a complete system from Dell.
by
zutroy
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· Score: 1
This is true, but as an emulator box, it's hard to beat a game system that was build as a game system. I like playing original NES games more on my DreamCast than on my PC, just because it feels more like playing the original NES.
Re:$336 gets you a complete system from Dell.
by
bhtooefr
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· Score: 1
A bottom-of-the-line Krazy Kenny's system costs $239-$249 (depending on which week it is). Add the monitor for $100 more, and WinXP for yet another $100 (although they do ship a Linux distro with the box). Total of $339 at the least, but you have to get an OS, and (unless this is a second computer) you'll have to pay more to get anything legit.
Re:$336 gets you a complete system from Dell.
by
jonsmirl
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· Score: 3, Informative
I got this one from Dell for $339 a couple of weeks ago. It is expired now but new ones come out all of the time. No way does it cost $336 to make an XBox.
Another new low price for the Dimension 4550. Dell is trying to boost their quarterly earnings which ends this month.
Dell Small Business has the Dimension 4550 2.53GHz Desktop for $339 after $200 rebate. It has AGP Slot, 4 PCI Slots, Intel 845PE chipset, 256MB DDR, 30GB HD, 48x CDRW or 16x DVD, 32MB Rage, Integrated NIC & Audio, XP Home, WordPerfect, and 1yr warranty.
1. Go to Dell Small Business.
2. Click on "Featured Systems" under the Dimension 4550 column.
3. Click on "Customize It" under the "Advanced Technology" column.
4. Select the following options:
* SPECIAL OFFER! 256MB 333MHz DDR SDRAM for the price of 128MB!
* FREE UPGRADE!! 16x Max DVD-ROM Drive OR
FREE UPGRADE! New 48x/24x/48x Max CD-RW Drive
5. Optional suggested upgrades:
* Pentium® 4 Processor at 2.66GHz w/533MHz front side bus/ 512K L2 Cache [add $20 or $0.75/month1]
* SAVE $100! New 4x DVD+RW/+R Drive w/CD-RW [add $80 or $3/month1] SAVE $100!!
* 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 MX(TM) Graphics Card with TV-Out [add $30 or $1/month1]
6. Continue to check out. Price should be $599.
7. Apply coupon code 4491A592C8BB for 10% off.
8. Send in the $200 rebate.
Final price is $599 - 10% ($60) - $200 rebate = $339 + tax w/ free shipping. The 2.53GHz CPU alone costs $184 at NewEgg.
Sell back the shift key to deadsaijinx* for billions of $$.
-- -- Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Please continue.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I like crazy shit like that.
"Nintendo has historically done a far worse job"
by
NineBall
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· Score: 1
I feel a Simpsons quote coming coming on... no... must resist... "Sorry, Donkey Kong, you're just not a draw anymore"
-- You may not agree with what I'm saying but I'll kill you for my right to say it
Because consoles are not about GFX or Online....
by
Viewsonic
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· Score: 3, Insightful
It's about FUN GAMES. Period. Something which Nitnendo has been dominating Sony and Microsoft since the early 80s. Nothing has ever sold more than Mario and Zelda. You mention HALO, that's fine.. What else is there? Nothing... Thats why! You can give crap games all the online stuff in the world and they'll still be a crap game. In online gaming on the PC where people are used to playing againts thousands of users, 8-24 player deathmatch is simply lacking, they shouldn't even bother. Just my lame opinion, I know.. But yes, Microsoft is the runt of the three, they have no idea what they're doing, so they've gone the route of "hey, lets make this thing JUST like the computer I own already and see if anyone notices!"..
YOU FAIL IT!!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Only logged in Trolls and Crapflooders can claim first poast.
YFR.YHL.HAND
Healthy competition
by
TrekkieGod
·
· Score: 2, Funny
On the same page as the article explaining how you can have a really compact PC for $336 by modding the x-box is an advertisement for Dell computers with free shipping.
That gets me thinking...maybe Microsoft needs to abandon the whole losing money on the xbox to compete with the playstation 2 strategy and start charging more for it and advertise the modding--and compete with companies such as Dell and Gateway:)
Xbox's successor will supposedly be a full-fledged PVR in addition to being a game console. Ostensibly they will just go ahead and make it a full set top box by including a browser.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:The most interesting quote from the article?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or "the lockdown technology formerly known as Palladium"
~~~
Did ya get the memo?
by
miu
·
· Score: 4, Informative
If Microsoft doesn't interfere with any of this alleged "illegal hacking" projects, they could sell those Xboxes like hot cakes.
Why would they want that? They make money from
Live subscriptions and game sales. People who
mod their XBox are unlikely to purchase either.
I agree that anyone who purchases an XBox should
be free to do with it what they want, but to claim
that mods are in Microsoft's best interest is
wrong.
MS will continue to support legislation that
makes modifying these units illegal.
--
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Re:Did ya get the memo?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I agree. I bought an XBox specifically for the purpose of modding it to steal games. I bought the box, an xecuter 2 lite, and an 80 GB hard drive. void warranty...solder...solder...done. Now, I rent a game for $5, put it in my xbox, hit "copy" on boxplorer, and I have it forever. w00t.
"Why would they want that? They make money from Live subscriptions and game sales. People who mod their XBox are unlikely to purchase either."
Because they can get 3rd party game companies to sign on by saying that millions of Xbox's have been sold. Then people who are likely to buy games will buy the xbox because of those 3rd party game companies.
Also it looks good on their press release to say how many Xbox consoles were sold...and sets them up for the Xbox 2.
If the modding got to out of hand and the decided that the money lost outweighed the benifits they might step in...but for now they will likely let most of the hacking slide.
The technical challenge of hacking an XBox to run Linux is something I'd like to take up...
However, it'd be much nicer if I could just mail MS and ask them for $100 towards a new PC and cut out all the middle men.
Is anyone working on a Xbox emulator btw? I'd be up for that.
-- The obvious is blinding, that's why no-one sees it coming.
Re:Did ya get the memo?
by
SatanicPuppy
·
· Score: 1
They may not be in the best interests of the company, but the notion of taking the same kind of IP restrictions that everyone has swallowed over software and porting them to hardware is absurd. What's next? They going to try and sue me for loading the dishwasher wrong?
Is Dell going to send guys to my house with baseball bats because I installed my own ram? They already treat me like a freak whenever I call for tech support and tell them "Linux" when they ask what OS.
Just my 2 cents worth.
-- ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Re:Did ya get the memo?
by
cygnus
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Why would they want that? They make money from Live subscriptions and game sales. People who mod their XBox are unlikely to purchase either.
people who buy xboxes for hacking are infinitely more likely to buy games (or xbox live) than someone who never bought an xbox at all.
They may not be in the best interests of the company, but the notion of taking the same kind of IP restrictions that everyone has swallowed over software and porting them to hardware is absurd. What's next? They going to try and sue me for loading the dishwasher wrong?
Of course laws giving the manufacturer the
ability to restrict how you use hardware are
ridiculous. I just think it is dangerous to
attempt to justify our control over our own
hardware according to the rules of the business
world.
Whether customer modification of purchased
hardware is a benefit to the manufacturer or not
is immaterial to the question of whether to allow
IP restrictions for hardware. Making a provably
false statement about financial benefit to the
manufacturer diverts lawmakers attention away from
the real issue and makes it easy to justify bad
laws like the DMCA.
people who buy xboxes for hacking are infinitely more likely to buy games (or xbox live) than someone who never bought an xbox at all.
Just barely. Mod users are kicked from the Live
service when discovered, so mod users likely to
use a free service other than Live. Mod users
can purchase or make bootleg games instead of
paying $40+/each.
If XBox hacking
became common MS could not promise consumers
cheat-free games, and could not promise licensees
a piracy free platform (both of which are things
they have started making noise about in press
releases and industry rags).
Actually there are hacks out there for running full versions of Windows2k and WindowsXP, as well as adding more features to the Win2k core in the Xbox so it can run Windows applications.
But that isn't as fun as telling the world that people are only using it for Linux.:)
It is funny how people will so easily eat up the journalism word for word and yet not stop to check the facts for themselves.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:The most interesting quote from the article?
by
zutroy
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Did you actually read the article?
That quote is attributed to a kid who runs an XBox hacking site. What you're doing here is akin to saying "someone on Slashdot said that Microsoft is going to lock down PCs! How is Microsoft denying this?!?"
Not that I don't agree with the sentiment, but this quote doesn't come from anyone associated with Microsoft.
So...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
By putting Linux on, will my games run better? Christ... I'm gonna go install Linux on my toaster, too.
Games - nope. But all that PR0N - Aaaah, that's quite a different story! No popups, no misleading links, no spam, just all the hot babes you ever wanted!
Here's a wacked out idea...
by
fudgefactor7
·
· Score: 1
Since MS is losing money on the XBox, as indicated in the story, couldn't one assist in MS' decline by purchasing as many XBoxes as was available? So, following that logic, everyone who loathes MS needs to go out and buy an XBox (but no games.)
Just a thought...
Re:Here's a wacked out idea...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Fuckin A. Nobody has ever suggested this before. You are a luminary.
Re:Here's a wacked out idea...
by
demonbug
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Great idea. Lets waste our money so MS might lose some. Of course, considering they have $40 billion odd in cash lying around (at least, I think I remember hearing something like that), we're going to have to buy a hell of a lot of X-boxes. Lets see, something like 400,000,000 of them I think (assuming they lose $100 a console). Somehow I don't think that is going to work.
Re:Here's a wacked out idea...
by
optikSmoke
·
· Score: 1
Hmm........ I don't think so. Let's take an example of 1 unit: MS builds it, sells it to a store at loss. From this point, the box can sit on a shelf, and do nothing, or you can come along and buy it. Either way, MS has already lost their money in putting it on that shelf. The only difference is how much money you've lost.
Re:The most interesting quote from the article?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I didn't mean to imply that Microsoft said the "quote". It would have been more clear if I attributed the quote, but I didn't think it was necessary at the time. Sorry.
Thanks for being a pain in the ass and accusing me of not reading the article.
HD size...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
that funny my XBOX came with 20GIG...
gee..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I wonder if this is going to bring out all the zealots?
I can just see it now
by
Timesprout
·
· Score: 5, Funny
in 10 years when Redhat has achieved total domination and released their new home entertainment system there will be a rush to see who will be the first to port win2010 to it and then posting to cfullcolon to brag about their l33t skillz and demanding the right to be allowed install the home entertainment systems as their car stereo if they so choose without being forced to make their car available to anyone who wants to drive it under the terms of the new Redhat GPL
-- Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth What truth? There is no dupe
Re:I can just see it now
by
TheNetAvenger
·
· Score: 1
Finally, a rational perspective through an obscure allegory.
Thank You...
I wonder
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
How much does slashdot recieves from microsoft for posting stories that sell more XBOXs like this one
Hmm, a troll about trolling.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
How droll. Learn the difference between ACCEPT and EXCEPT, you illiterate, Microsoft cheerleader.
Re:Hmm, a troll about trolling.
by
TheNetAvenger
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Since we are policing grammar, should I point out the mistakes in your post as well?
Maybe I can start with the fragmented sentence or the incorrect comma usage?
Intelligence without tolerance is the ultimate oxymoron. - Unknown TheNetAvenger
But it does highlight the complexity of Microsoft's struggles to make its products more secure. Because Xbox has so much capability...
You'd think that MS would embrace this community and use thier advances as a selling point for the X-Box. Maybe they could make software of this type an official release. The whole idea of the media hub seems to be what most companies are moving towards today, so you would think that MS would want software of this type running on its system.
Yes, but only if they get to sell it. They would like everyone in the world to own an MS media center, as long as they pay through the nose to do so. Selling a console at a loss and then supporting free software that allows it to do all kinds of things does not seem to me to be a good strategy.
Yes, I assumed that MS would want to charge for what they would be officially supporting, but developing something can often be very expensive, so all they would have to do is sell the stuff that is already out there.
Yeah, you would think, but if you had been paying attention you would have seen that Microsoft is set to ship a Media update for the Xbox in the fall that will be a media point and access music and pictures from local PCs connected to the home network.
And hey, they are even putting in a virtual dance studio and karaoke capabilities.
Although I do wish they would take things a bit farther and add a browser for Live (Online) users and a few other basic features.
Xbox live 2.0 will include support for (at least) WMV and WMA files, and perhaps some flavors of AVI, though I haven't heard anything about that. I think it's supposed to play mp3, too. And all of this over the network.
Hence, any software like this competes with Microsoft and their attempts to play the DRM game.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
US Army likes XBox
by
Alain+Williams
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
See BBC News today, they have a war game that runs on one. Is this preparation for dealing with those individuals that won't run a M$ operating system ?
I've considered that startegy
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
The problem is that Microsoft will show the numbers to game developers. "See? We are selling tons of these. You really should write your game for XBox, if you want to push product." Of course, that could fall apart for Microsoft and the game developers if none of the games sell well. If the game developers neglect other platforms like PS2 and Gamecube, however, people would probably go for the only game in town.
MS is not feeling threatened...yet.
by
methangel
·
· Score: 1
The article stated that they do not yet feel threatened by the Xbox hacking. I think it is only a matter of time before they start cracking down. A 180.00 Xbox can be used as an 1,800.00 Media Center PC that Microsoft is currently trying to sell to consumers.
People have always wanted the most bang for their buck, and they always will. There is really nothing Microsoft can do about it either.
Re:MS is not feeling threatened...yet.
by
TheNetAvenger
·
· Score: 1
Um... Close, but not quite.
If you will notice a Media Center PC can Record and View Television, as well as burn DVDs of the recorded shows.
A Media Center PC can also do a few other things that just isn't available with the current XBox hardware.
BTW The XBox already has virtual jukebox abilities by copying your CDs to the hard drive, and this is a standard feature - no hack needed.
The funny part..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
..is that by buying an Xbox instead of a Mini-ITX PC, you're funding Microsoft. The "MS loses money on every Xbox sold" theory doesn't hold water due to the fact that 1) Thanks to the drop of PC part prices, Microsoft now turns a profit on every Xbox sold, and 2) even if they didn't profit on the hardware (which they, in fact, do), a purchased xbox loses them less money than an unpurchased one does.
Thanks for saying this; I was thinking of mentioning this fact, and the fact that MS loses more money for every Xbox manufactured and not sold; they recoup much of that if you buy one.
Re:The funny part..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Yes, but when one xbox is sold off the shelf, Microsoft needs to produce another one to replace it. So, yeah, they're recouping some of the cost for the first one, but then they're producing another.... In other words, a $10 loss from a purchased product plus a $180 loss from an unpurchased product is a greater loss than the $180 loss from an unpurchased product... Of course, it they actually make money on the xbox than this is a moot point.
A new (and better) WebTV?
by
Angry+Pixie
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Ona quick note, Microsoft doesn't mind hacking the Xbox to make it into something more; if fact, MS wants that done... but not right now... and not by someone who hasn't been licensed to develop software/hardware.
I've watched a week-long dedication to hacking the XBox on TechTV a little while ago, and I saw Windows Media Player on the thing. I don't own any console, but what does XBox run OS-wise? Is it Windows CE or some mutant form of it?
Can I get a keyboard, web browser, a dialup modem, and maybe have a better WebTV? If it can run Linux, does that mean I can install Slackware straight from CD?
Re:A new (and better) WebTV?
by
TheNetAvenger
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The XBox runs the Windows 2000/NT core with a version of DirectX that is on par with DirectX8.
However, you don't get Explorer and the other GUI applications of Win2k.
WindowsCE has some NT Core concepts in it, but it is another OS entirely.
Re:A new (and better) WebTV?
by
bhtooefr
·
· Score: 1
The Xbox runs a modified version of Windows 2000 with DirectX. Answer your question?
Re:A new (and better) WebTV?
by
burns210
·
· Score: 1
why is everyone wanting to hack the xBox, and further the adoption of a machine made by a company that EVERYONE here seems to hate? want to hack a console, cool, lets do it. Sony has a friggin KIT to help you guys hack it!
Sure, find, hack the console up, but in 5 years, when everyone is hating the monopoly MS will have on the home entertainment market, i will loudly proclaim that 'i told you so'.
Re:A new (and better) WebTV?
by
Angry+Pixie
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· Score: 1
why is everyone wanting to hack the xBox
For likely no greater reason than because it's there to be hacked.
When Microsoft dominates the home entertainment market it will have
nothing to do with hacking the XBox, and everything to do with Microsoft's
long-term strategy.
The PC market is one of ever-diminishing returns, meaning that PC makers
that compete on price & features are finding it harder to make a profit
and grow the company. If you're a publicly-traded corp. growth can be
more important that profits because of the direct affect corp growth has on
investors. This is why Dell now wants to compete with HP on PDAs and Voodoo
on high-performance snazzy PCs...
Microsoft needs to be in markets with high growth rates in order for it
grow in turn. MS, like McDonald's is in a position where the company has
gotten so big, it needs to make ever-increasing gains just to grow by a fraction.
Now that digital media has become a characteristic of average consumer's computing
habits, the idea of digital media appliances like XBox and Tivo will become as
accepted as the VCR and cable box. Microsoft knows that this is the next booming
market, so why should Microsoft play there?
On the downside, by being an appliance and not a PC in the classic sense, it will
be much easier to close the system off to the majority of consumers. In return for
accepting *gasp* DRM, consumers will get increased channels for multimedia. I'll be
able to download albums from applemusic.com to my stereo (which will be an XBox v3).
By virtue of being a small appliance, it will make it that much easier for consumers
to buy into a software as subscription model. Something I've already done
with my digital cable service.
If you're a software developer, you may get crushed if you can't swing with the big
guys: Adobe, Intuit, etc.. Microsoft will offer two very restrictive and expensive
licenses: one granting the use of the SDK and one granting permission to circumvent
hardware/software protections (needed for the DMCA) so that you can actually develop.
On the upside, this means a lot of mods could come of this. On the downside, it will
cost an arm and a leg for that damn XBox Compatible Logo. If you're an independent
software developer, you could get pushed out of the market entirely.
Yes, the ramifications are pretty horrible, and thankfully I'm educated enough to see
this and dwell on it; and yet, I want an XBox. The way I see it, Sony would do the
same if it could get away with it; and I remember when Nintendo was pretty tough on
software developers and consumers. Look at it this way, the only PC makers who will
experience steady positive growth and profitability will be smaller niche-market
companies that provide service. This means Voodoo PC will be around. In which case,
the elite geeks will have PCs to themselves once again!
"Nintendo has historically done a far worse job" 2
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Have you heard of the original Nintendo? Or Super Nintendo? Consoles existed before 1999. Nintendo once had games for a very wide audience (some would argue they still do, but that's not important right now).
"Damn, some good points, who the hell would put it as offtopic?!"
I would. Hardware does not a good system make, it's the games. For example, the PS2 has a nasty little bottleneck which causes most of the games to appear blurry. Yet, it's still popular. Either people like blurry graphics or they like the games that are on it.
-- "Derp de derp."
Re:MOD PARENT UP
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Re:MOD PARENT UP
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Hardware does not a good system make, it's the games.
Teh Spectrum is teh bestest computre EVAR!!!1
dont understand..
by
segfault_0
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
While it says it will attack hackers on a case-by-case basis, analysts say the company has so far tolerated the Xbox hacking as an unavoidable nuisance.
Alright, im still having trouble with people selling others hardware products with the intentions of them using it for a specific purpose - and then suddenly its a punishable offense that they are going "attack". What business is it of theirs what I do with my XBox?
If these machines come with these kinds of restrictions I think we're still getting ripped off at 180$ a box. Im on my way to buy an XBox to modify just for spite.:P
--
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something.
(Charles Manson)
you could build your own (better) PC for about that much and you don't have to go to the trouble of hacking anything.
Nforce2 motherboard w/ integrated sound, lan and Geforce4 MX - $100
Athlon XP 1700+ - $42
2x 256mb PC2700 - $86
48x24x48x CDRW - $40
40gb hard drive- $60
Cheap case and decent PSU - $50
these are SHIPPED prices from Newegg.
Yeah you are saving $175 to hack the XBox, but the PC the guy listed is several times faster than the XBox. The XBox has a 733mhz PIII, only 64mb of RAM, only a 8gb hard drive, and a NVidia video chipset that is in the class of the Geforce3. The listed system is a 1+ghz Processor, a Geforce4 (and even the MX can put out more graphical punch than the Geforce3), more Ram and a larger Hard Drive.
For a gaming console the XBox is still at the top of the league for performance, but compared to a cheap PC, it isn't that special anymore.
(Even the laptop I am typing this on can put out several times the poly's and pixels per sec than an XBox)
This URL demonstrates the placement of the GF3Ti200 against GF4MX cards. Note how it is always within 5% of the 4MX performance, and exceeds it by more than it is exceeded (in other benchmarks.)
Xbox's NV2X runs at 250 MHz. Highly-overclocked GF3Ti200s run at about 240MHz, but normally run at 175MHz. This is supposed to be more powerful (slightly) than a GF3, clock for clock. Hence, this should beat up on a GF4MX pretty nicely.
Other than that, you're right about the system. It should really have a DVD, however, which is cheaper than CDRW anyway. If it has a network card, you can burn more satisfactorily on your PC anyway. The Athlon XP 1700+ beats the P3 up pretty soundly, and can probably be overclocked to a 2000+ anyway. Mine can, with just a normal fan:D
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For a gaming console the XBox is still at the top of the league for performance, but compared to a cheap PC, it isn't that special anymore.
(Even the laptop I am typing this on can put out several times the poly's and pixels per sec than an XBox)
Problem is, that isn't true. If you look at the specs / numbers, the PC is faster on paper. The problem is that the games on the X-Box are specifically optimized for that platform. I remember reading John Carmack's.plan awhile back where he said a 50% performance improvement isn't unreasonable when developing for a specific system.
Plus, how's the video-out on that GF4 MX? I'd be willing to bet it's not as good as the video-out on the x-box card. Not to mention, does the MX even have programmable pixel shaders? You're going to start seeing those in more and more games so cards without that are going to take a big hit in visual quality, and some games may even require that feature.
Your system may run Linux better than the X-Box, but the X-Box is better where it's meant to be: gaming. Games WILL look better and perform better than that system, I guarantee it.
Plus, how's the video-out on that GF4 MX? I'd be willing to bet it's not as good as the video-out on the x-box card. Not to mention, does the MX even have programmable pixel shaders? You're going to start seeing those in more and more games so cards without that are going to take a big hit in visual quality, and some games may even require that feature.
Your system may run Linux better than the X-Box, but the X-Box is better where it's meant to be: gaming. Games WILL look better and perform better than that system, I guarantee it.
Ok where to start....
#1) Linux is not the primary OS on this laptop, WindowsXP is, thank you very much. VMWare or Microsoft Virtual Server for Linux user support only. I wouldn't give up the performance hit to move to Linux or lose the NT core features that I take for granted everyday. I like NT (being a NT beta tester since 1992) and know just a bit too much about it and the contrasting *nix kernels and cores. I also enjoy the ability to resume from a full power down Hibernate in 3secs, which is handy on a laptop.
#2) The video out on the GeforceMX 440 Go (specifically) is actually very good. It is using the SAME NVIDIA video out technology that is in the XBOX. (Did you miss something, NVIDIA makes both chips?) I can also do a 1024x768 out to a high quality TV and play the game, something that the Xbox analog out does not support. (Yes I know it can do HDTV)
#3) I would definitely argue that games can run better and look better on my laptop. For example running at 1600x1200 a game like RT Castle Wolfenstein runs very smooth and the clarity is spectacular - very crisp - detail that is just lost in the Xbox version. The Xbox can't even touch this resolution even in HDTV mode and would not be able to pull off 60fps while doing it.
In contrast, the Xbox is pushing out only HDTV (if available) or NTSC at 30fps for games. This is far cry from 1600x1200 and 60fps.
If I want to drop to TV Out only and 720x480 and run a game, my laptop will run circles around the Xbox. (Heck I can even dual screen with the game playing on the TV at 720x480 and my laptop screen still at 1600x1200 with someone browsing the net on it and not lose performance in the game.)
Another good example, I own Spiderman-The Movie Game, and on my laptop I can do 1280x1024 (Spidey doesn't offer a higher mode) and the scenes are just breath taking. I also bought a copy for my Xbox, although it looked quite good, even on a TV Screen, it just couldn't compare to the PC version on my laptop.
You should also take just basic specifications and compare. I have almost three times the CPU, I have a video card that is just as fast as what is in the Xbox (if not faster in many cases), I have more Video memory, I have more System RAM, and I also have full 5.1 surround just like the Xbox. So if I drop my video out to the Xbox level and play at 720x480 at 30fps, or even drop to the 1080i HDTV level, there is NO WAY the Xbox is going to keep up.
If I remember right the article you refer to about console games being faster, one of its direct points was that PCs have to push out a higher resolution like 800x600 minimum and do so at 60fps at minimal, where game consoles only have to do NTSC and 30fps. It wasn't saying that PCs couldn't achieve the power of a console, but that on average the console had the advantage because its output was severely restricted to TV standards. Not just that console games were specifically optimized for the console.
As you remember the Xbox is just Windows2000 with a variant of DirectX, and that is all the game developers have to target to make a good Xbox game. (Again why you see many PC and Xbox cross over titles - because they use the same basic fundamental development environment)
However, I am a fan of the Xbox, somehow you missed that. I own all three major consoles, and the Xbox is by far my favorite. It is by far the most advanced for graphics, performance, playability, and ease of game development
Did it every occur to anybody..
by
rufusdufus
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Did it every occur to anybody that maybe Microsoft really wants people to hack X-box? They want it to become hip-to-hack. This is the sort of grassroots cool they really hunger for. Basically, the hackers create a hip new market and what the heck can MS do but jump on the bandwagon? After all their goal all along is not to make a game platform, but to build a more ubiquitous computer platform.
Re:Did it every occur to anybody..
by
drinkypoo
·
· Score: 1
I guess it's a plausible scenario, but on the other hand, they're pushing the DRM thing so hard it's difficult to imagine that it might be true.
On the other hand, the ideas of Machiavelli are both available in book form and reasonable things to come up with on one's own, if you catch my drift here. If M$ pushes DRM like a mad bastard for a while they can make some money out of it, then if things go wrong they can just change a bunch of officers and go open source and/or give up on DRM.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Did it every occur to anybody..
by
Mac+Degger
·
· Score: 1
You haven't been reading your copy well enough; Remember that if you ask for something insane, people won't give it to you. But if you then afterwards ask for something merely crazy, you'll most likely get it, even though it is something people wouldn't have accepted before you asked for the insane thing.
Rince, repeat, and MS gets DRM...it just takes a bit longer.
The heck with the Xbox PC, I'm getting me some Xbox Sized fries!
(!!!) A big, serious question
by
SharpFang
·
· Score: 1
The problem is: M$ loses maybe $10 on one Xbox, gaining nothing (I buy no games). That's a really small fraction of their cash. I lose $180 and gain a piece of junk hardware, that's worth about nothing to me. That's a considerable piece of my income. That's why it's not going to work.
But in the other hand - Does anyone know of any good ways to run some distributed computing by creating a big cluster of Xboxes? They really look like great machines for that! Just enough of everything to run a single "cell" of such a cluster, hardware below "stock" prices, small, reliable, standarised... Hmm, a good idea for a business. Too bad I don't have enough cash to start it.
Dell Small Business has the Dimension 4550 2.53GHz Desktop for $339 after $200 rebate. It has AGP Slot, 4 PCI Slots, Intel 845PE chipset, 256MB DDR, 30GB HD, 48x CDRW or 16x DVD, 32MB Rage, Integrated NIC & Audio, XP Home, WordPerfect, and 1yr warranty.
Go to Dell Small Business.
Click on "Featured Systems" under the Dimension 4550 column.
Click on "Customize It" under the "Advanced Technology" column.
Select the following options:
SPECIAL OFFER! 256MB 333MHz DDR SDRAM for the price of 128MB!
FREE UPGRADE!! 16x Max DVD-ROM Drive OR
FREE UPGRADE! New 48x/24x/48x Max CD-RW Drive
Optional suggested upgrades:
Pentium® 4 Processor at 2.66GHz w/533MHz front side bus/ 512K L2 Cache [add $20 or $0.75/month1]
SAVE $100! New 4x DVD+RW/+R Drive w/CD-RW [add $80 or $3/month1] SAVE $100!!
64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 MX(TM) Graphics Card with TV-Out [add $30 or $1/month1]
Continue to check out. Price should be $599.
Apply coupon code 4491A592C8BB for 10% off.
Send in the $200 rebate.
Final price is $599 - 10% ($60) - $200 rebate = $339 + tax w/ free shipping. The 2.53GHz CPU alone costs $184 at NewEgg.
Oh. You mean like a Mac?
by
KalvinB
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Seriously. MS comming out with a proprietary PC has nothing to do with being a monopoly.
Unless they prevent me from building my own systems and running whatever I want on them, there's not an issue.
I wouldn't be shocked if MS came out with a WindowsPC. If they can put together a good PC at a good price, great for them.
I played that with my kids, and now my grandkids. They laff themselves just silly over it, for some reason the 3 year olds like to go right up to the TV and kill 'em. And that dumb dog...
No idea why, just holding and shooting that stupid gun just thrills them. They'll entertain themselves for hours with it. If this thing ever breaks, me and gramma are doomed. I've been trolling the garage sales for replacements, no can find.
Re:Duck Hunt!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
eBay.
Re:Duck Hunt!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The bit about going right up to the screen? I still do it at 23. Its because I can't aim with a home light gun for toffee.:-P
/me goes back to playing House of the Dead 2 on the dreamcast next to his mac.
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
TheNetAvenger
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Disagree, I actually own several XBox titles, and I have access through one of my clients to rent games for free as much as I like through the local video store.
Buffy, Kungfu Chaos, MechAssault, Halo, Castle Wolfensten, BaldersGate, etc, etc.
Halo isn't the 'only' good XBox game out there or I would just rent them when I wanted to play instead of buying them. Trust me...
Step 3 is...:
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Make your initial loss back from licensing 3rd party software for your platform. Anything after that is step 4.
No, Pandemic likes XBox...
by
Svartalf
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· Score: 2, Informative
The article said, and I quote,
"A combat simulator developed to train grunts in discipline and manoeuvres is being adapted for the Xbox games console."
This doesn't mean that the Army's using X-Boxes as you're implying. It only means that Pandemic's making an X-Box version of the simulation based upon the Army's version that they supplied.
-- I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Has anyone tried running Windows XP Embedded on an xbox? I've been working with XPe for about a week, and frankly I'm pretty impressed with the ability to select/deselect components of the OS (don't want IE, don't include IE), but it seems it would be something that someone has tested on a 'box.
'box?!?! 'box?!?! C'mon! You're only contracting one freakin' letter! And come to think of it, by replacing the uppercase "X" with an apostrophe, you're not even saving yourself any keystrokes! =)
</anal>
-- "Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
My boss has, but he sucks at it. He doesn't know much about computers. I think he may be retarded. I hope he is. That means I can spend more time on Slashdot screwing with his mind.
I hacked my PS2 to run Linux (:
by
LoudMusic
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If I had a good reason to hack an XBox I'd do it, but as it stands, it's best for playing video games. It would be fun to buy a bunch of XBoxes, mod them, and continue to screw Microsoft, though. Oh well.
-- No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Mod this fucker up
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
God damn, there's some insight into that shit.
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
korielgraculus
·
· Score: 1
Take a look at the "classic" range that MS have just released... one of the requirements to be in the range is that the game has to have sold over 1 million copies, so I guess there must be other fun games than Halo.
From your quote about number of players I take it that PC users ONLY ever play MMORPGs online, like Everquest, sort of rules Counter Strike, Battlefield 1942, Quake, Wolfenstein etc. out of the game doesn't it?
Re:Oh. You mean like a Mac?
by
kuma
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
take your head out of your ass, please.
if i wanted to, i could easily load four different linux/bsd distro's on an off-the-shelf mac
what the original post was talking about is: how do you use linux, mac os x or solaris on your desktop in a world where every email in your organization (including the ones about brownies in the kitchen) *requires* palladium to read?
every hard-core tech could be forced to keep a windows computer on their desk (like me) even though their primary development platform is completely different
and then be forced to justify using the optimal platform for their job because it's not *standard* (and challenges tech support's ciphincter grip on the enterprise desktop environment)
spend $200 on a lindows pc. Yes, I know you'll still have no tv out, so you'll have to blow another $100 on a scan converter. You do get ethernet though, and a 1.1 gig duron:). Still, I don't like the idea of relying on something so patently illegal (note: I said illegal, not immoral) as modchips. Not that I expect microsoft to come roaring into my house and arrest me...
On the other hand, this is really cool for 2 reasons. One, it provides a real, legit, fair use reason for modchips. Two, it's gotta really tick MS off. Not only do they lose money on the hardware, but after this is done you can't play XBox games anymore, meaning MS can never make the money back.
-- Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Re:Wow, $336! Save $3 over a 2.53GHz Dell!
by
pair-a-noyd
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, but there is a personal satisfaction factor you forgot to consider. There just is no way to describe the JOY of hacking an Xbox and loading Linux onto it. It's a real poke in the eye for Bill Gate$ and that is worth it to me.
And there's the geek factor to consider too..
There are many benefits to hacking the xbox, most of them involve personal issues...
Re:Troll alert!! MOD THIS DOWN!!!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
HAHAHAHA
(yer joking right?)
Let me get this straight...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
If MS locks up thier hardware in a propeitary box and doesnt let you run another OS on it, its BAD, but when apple does it, its Innovative.
Riiiight.
*scoff*
this is not the subject line
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
This is not the body of a comment in reply to your comment.
I am not clicking the "Submit" button.
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
badboy_tw2002
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· Score: 1
Uhh, GTA3 + vice City???
Or were you just talking about Microsoft. I'd say Considering Sony has 6 times the consoles out there they're doing something right. And show me anything in the current Nintendo crop that beats the simplicity and fun factor of GTA3? Even Myramoto agrees to that (see his recent E3 interview)
"Viola" is Spanish for...
by
yerricde
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Viola is an instrument.
"Viola" is also Spanish for "he rapes", as in raping Microsoft for $100 when buying an Xbox console.
just bought one ...
by
timothy
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I paid $150 for a used Xbox from an EB Games in Florida, and (not technically part of the Xbox, but now intimately connected;)) a clip-on LCD screen from intec. That was also $150, so, so far I've spent $300, but I know I need to purchase at least one more thing, which is either a modchip or a memory thingie loaded with the buffer-overflow code from the 007 game.
The reason I spent so much for a (tiny -- 5.4") LCD screen is that (so I was told by the EB clerk, at least:)) the xbox won't run without a video output connected, and I bought this to run in my car.
(Pawn-shopping, I might have found one cheaper, but... EB I figure has a decent reputation, and if the box was broke, I'd have better luck there than at Ed's Pawn & Guns.)
I have already downloaded one live-ISO distro for the thing (dynebolic); until I have a modchip, though, it's just a clunky but surprisingly good-sounding CD player. (The speakers on the intec screen are not outstanding, but they're decent for my tin ears.)
Why an xbox for the car? You don't have to agree with my reasoning, or taste (of which I have none), but my thoughts go like this:
1) I want a CD player for the car. I don't have one, and I happen to like my head unit (an oldish but *old* Blaupunkt system with a simple, logical control layout and a line-in), so I'd rather not pay for a CD head unit. (I also think most of them have terrible control layouts, just really bizarre design decisions.) CD player is for some music, and for the audiobooks that Cracker Barrel conveniently stocks for $3/week;)
2) I'd like an ogg player for the car. I've been compressing my CD collection to ogg, and it's a lot simpler to carry 3 CD-Rs than 30 CDs.
3) When stopped (or for passengers) I think a video screen is neat in a car. Futurama in DiVX, for instance. Frivolous? Yes. I would not like to spend thousands of dollars on a video system, but as a nudge toward the xbox as a possible do-everything car computer, it works.
4) With a USB hub attached and a GNU/Linux system installed, I'm hoping I can hook up a web cam and use is as a low-tech DVR for the car.
I don't care too much about games per se, and will probably be using a no-solder modchip with the Cromwell BIOS, so Xbox games are probably out, but Frozen Bubble...
If anyone would like to offer a memory card with the hack that makes a modchip unnecessary (for a fair price), let me know quick, before I order a regular modchip:)
2) You can rip A LOT of CDs onto an unmodded Xbox. You may already have OGG files but how much trouble could it possibly be to buy an Xbox and have it ripping CDs for a couple days while you're doing other things?
3) Futurama (and many others) are available on DVD, so you can play those on an unmodded Xbox too (but then you couldn't steal - I mean, download - copyrighted video and play them).
Not to be contrary, but to your lettered points...
a) True enough, and that's all I *have* been doing with mine so far:)
b) I was surprised to notice this (the copying feature) when I hooked mine up. I own no xbox games, I popped in an audio CD to see whether it would play (basically testing the drive, since I knew from the startup splash that the xbox itself was functional...) and it gave me the option to copy the disk. I suppose this is pretty basic, but I really don't know much about the as-intended use of the xbox, and before 2 days ago knew even less. wrt to "how much trouble could it possibly be," well... it would be a lot of duplicated effort, that's all. Most of my CDs I've already put into cold storage after burning to my hard drive.
c) Yes, it's actually my Futurama 1st season box set that I'd like to squash on there. I don't have any illegally downloaded episodes / never have, no plans to pursue any:)
d) Webcam / Digital Video Recorder. In the last 3 years I've driven about 60,000 miles, and out of 1) curiosity / for the same reason I take a lot of photos at all and 2) in some hopefully unlikely but certainly possible situations, it would be useful to have proof that The Other Guy ran the red light, or swerved into my lane, or whatever. Similar to the reasons that cops (and people in certain other professions) have video cameras in their cars.
You don't have to agree with me, or want to do the same:)
I wasn't trying to flame you in any way on that fourth point. I honestly didn't understand what you were getting at. It's an interesting concept - you're right that I wouldn't be interested in it myself but that's certainly to way to measure utility.
I've said before that I have no problem with people modding their Xboxen for whatever legal purposes they're interested in pursuing, and I don't personally think that Microsoft should have the right to stop it. I did, though, think that your middle two uses [for a modded Xbox] were a bit silly, but that's just me.:)
Re: webcam in car, eh, not everyone wants one. I get some odd ideas that have thus far not made me rich, which "gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is." I think it's interesting in general to track where I am or have been...
Re: how silly the middle two uses are, well, playing previously squashed ogg files would be a lot less important if I hadn't already ripped so many CDs (a few hundred) to my hard drive. I listen mostly to audiobooks when on long drives, some of which come on 4 or 6 CDs... it's a lot simpler to have them ripped in advance than change disks while in the car. (Until I install a modchip, I will be putting a few of my CDs on there so it has some use as a jukebox.) And watching movies etc in the car is definitely the lowest priority thing on that list, but it's still a real thing I'd like to be able to do. YMMV:)
(I'm not sure how well the resolution of the xbox will work for it, but another application I'd like on there is Roadmap, a GPS-based mapping program for Linux. (If it works for the Zaurus, I bet the xbox could work, too;))
Pretty obvious, I'm sure, but probably the biggest reason I'd like to have a computer in my car is out of curiosity / interest, much more than any specific application it may find.
Re:just bought one ...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Oops. The clerk snowed you -- they run fine without a video output. You might want that $150 back.
USA Today : research :: Slashdot : relevance
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Uh, didn't Bunnie graduate a while back? I certainly hope so, as we've been trying to lure him back to the Right Coast for the past year...
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
Cirvam
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Didn't Castle Wolfensten (assuming you mean RTCW as the original wouldn't say much for the Xbox's power) and Baulders Gate first come out for the PC? So really they aren't exactly original titles...whereas most of the titles for the other consoles either are exclusive to consoles or they come out for the PC a few months/years later (GTA3).
Modchips don't have to be illegal
by
timothy
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
rsilvergun wrote: Still, I don't like the idea of relying on something so patently illegal (note: I said illegal, not immoral) as modchips.
I know you also said "[xbox hacking] provides a real, legit, fair use reason for modchips," but I don't think your first statement is correct. A modchip loaded with an illegally BIOS would be illegal -- but for one that's blank, or loaded with the Cromwell BIOS, I don't know why that should be true.
And on that note, a no-solder modchip with the Cromwell bios seems like a reasonable enough upgrade -- less than the cost of the ethernet module for a Dreamcast:)
Re:Modchips don't have to be illegal
by
rsilvergun
·
· Score: 1
Presumably if you own the original bios you can make a copy of it to use with the modchip. Of course, the modchip seller only has the chip, so the only way to make this work legally is to transfer ownership (probably physically) to the modchip seller temporarilly. Or else sell a kit with a blank bios and means to write/patch the bios yourself. Silly yes, but legal. It's a moot point though, MS's lawyers are powerfull/rich enough to shoot this arguement (and probably fair use in general) down pretty fast.
-- Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
rhuntley12
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You have to realize, like you said nintendo has been in the market for a LONG time. MS just joined not long ago, and for being a newcomer, they are doing fairly well. They would go under imo if they didn't have the windows money backing them. Granted lately there haven't been a whole lot of games coming out, let alone for any systems. They don't have the amount of games that Sony has, or the 'figureheads' Nintendo has.(Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc)
But one of the smartest things they are doing, and doing better then Sony and Nintendo, is Xbox Live. It's incredible compared to the other two. I suggest you pickup xbl, unreal championship and wolfenstein. And sports games if you like, but I enjoy wolf and unreal.
Also, look at some titles MS has coming out, from Rare too, some amazing games coming out.
They wont kill Nintendo or Sony, but I think given some time they will be a huge contender. And I think XBL by next year will be huge. By then they will have many many more titles, and lots more downloadable content. I mean how much does getting free level in Splinter Cell own?
Microsoft loses $150 on each xbox it sells.....
by
kajoob
·
· Score: 1
at this rate, we'll only have to buy up a shade over 26 million of these puppies to eat up Microsoft's $4 billion cash reserve. The Empire is about to fall!
-- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Want to hurt Microsoft? There's a sure fire way...
by
Mongoose
·
· Score: 1
If you really want to hurt Microsoft' buy only their competition's products, write letters to OEMs demanding no to the Microsoft tax, and encourage the use of Linux in your workplace/school/home.
If you can replace just one future purchase of a single Windows machine, you knock $500-$1000 out of Microsoft's hands. That really hurts them in the only place they care about.
The xbox mediaplayer website says (in the FAQ) "For legal reasons, no Xbox(TM) binaries will be released from us or distributed by us until a legal non-MS compiler is available (so please do not ask for any files not posted here). (Note! XDK compiled binaries are NOT released or distributed by the XboxMediaPlayer team). Do not ask or e-mail us requesting any Xbox files or asking where they can be downloaded from, thanks."
Can anyone comment on when this might no longer be true?
..is not available in all the countries where Xbox is.
-- Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Re:And a WalMart PC...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Really, can someone tell me why people are so obsessed about hacking the xbox?
Xbox is microsofts, new and hopeful cash cow. They're taking care of it like a brand new puppy. So hacking it, is kinda like kicking microsoft's dog. This is as close as it gets./bein an ass
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I didn't catch that part of his address, but Miyamoto also pointed out that Nintendo will never go down that road. Nintendo has always been like this, and always will be - no hookers, no drugs, no cop killing. I kind of admire it, really.
. . . that/.'ers who are generally opposed to M$'s monopolistic business tactics rush to buy Xboxes. I know the usual arguments is "M$ loses money for each one sold," but it seems people are actually buying games for their systems too.
I'm guessing you enjoy M$ dominating yet another industry?
The XBOX is a DRM (digital rights management) PC type system, not a standard boot-any-x86-OS PC. Hacking on this hardware is nothing like hacking on standard x86 stuff.
I think you meant to say that hacking the XBOX is a waste of your time. Also, the XBOX won't have a killer app. Apps are traditional applications and the XBOX runs games. As long as MS wants to sell these things cheaper than the cost of manufacture, people will want to buy it to potentially replace low end PCs, can't say I blame them.
I bet MS appreciates your attempt to slow the hacking of the XBOX, however little it may help.
--
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
"I think you meant to say that hacking the XBOX is a waste of your time."
Let me make sure this is clear: Hacking the XBOX is a waste of E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y'S time.
"As long as MS wants to sell these things cheaper than the cost of manufacture, people will want to buy it to potentially replace low end PCs, can't say I blame them."
Except you're not getting interesting hardware for a cheaper price here. Sorry, nothing of value here, especially when there's no software to drive them. Beef up the RAM and give it a VGA-Out, then maybe you got something here.
"I bet MS appreciates your attempt to slow the hacking of the XBOX, however little it may help."
I don't care of MS appreciates it or not. Nothing I'm talking about has anything to do with benefitting MS. It has to do with not horsing around with them so they enter the battle, especially when the cause to hack the XBOX is so weak. If it goes to court, 'fair use' will not hold up as long as there's no reason to hack the XBOX. All MS has to say is "They want to pirate games". What will the defense be? "Uh, no, we want a seriously inferior machine to run Linux on."
Pay attention to what's going on in the world today (like the DVD copying software that's in court now, about to lose...) and then tell me that hacking the XBOX is a good idea. Hell yeah I want them to slow down or even stop. It's bad enough we have Disney buying senators.
Despite appearances, MS is quite happy to have an active hacker community around the XBox. No, not in a Sega Dreamcast "let them have their fun" way. More in a "see Senator, we told you the DMCA was too weak" way. And also in a "ok, we won't use that specific technique in Athena/Palladium" way.
Curiosity is wonderful, agreed. Perhaps XBox hackers should become curious about the bigger political and technical picture around their current activities.
Let me make sure this is clear: Hacking the XBOX is a waste of E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y'S time.
That is your opinion, don't be surprised when others disagree with you.
Except you're not getting interesting hardware for a cheaper price here. Sorry, nothing of value here, especially when there's no software to drive them.
Again, uninteresting to you, not to others. If capable people hack, then software becomes available and value increases. Modified xboxes are showing up in cars as mp3 players with a small 640x480 lcd screen. They can make nice divx players for home theater too. All this without vga out.
If it goes to court, 'fair use' will not hold up as long as there's no reason to hack the XBOX.
Are you giving legal advice on Slashdot? You seem to be giving legal case outcome predictions at a minimum. A quote from Stanford, "The "fair use" doctrine allows limited reproduction of copyrighted works for educational and research purposes." I think you may be misapplying the "fair use" phrase with respect to hacking. The hacking projects are replacing code, not copying.
DVD copying and running Linux on a hacked xbox aren't the same thing.
--
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
That is your opinion, don't be surprised when others disagree with you.
Actually, you should probably listen to him. *remembering some turmoil with Lik-Sang (did I get the name right?) and his modding site getting shut down with minimalistic reasons.
Modified xboxes are showing up in cars as mp3 players with a small 640x480 lcd screen. They can make nice divx players for home theater too. All this without vga out.
Can't say I've followed this topic a whole lot, but this is the first time I've heard of the mp3 dealie. Got a link or something? I'm genuinely curious as I'd like to have something like that in my car. As for divx players, NG's probably right in that it won't hold a lot of water. Divx has been associated with piracy. Fair use, yadda yadda yadda, impressions matter more than you think.
Are you giving legal advice on Slashdot? You seem to be giving legal case outcome predictions at a minimum....DVD copying and running Linux on a hacked xbox aren't the same thing.
I think what he's saying is that the court's not likely to see the consumer side of things here. Ignoring what he's saying is not doing you a lick of good. You don't have to agree with NG, but at least you should consider his point. You're dismissing him in the most frivilous ways. Just because you see things one way doesn't mean the courts will suddenly bow to your superior ways.
Re:Not quite
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Let me make sure this is clear: Hacking the XBOX is a waste of E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y'S time.
Um, I don't recall wasting my time while someone else hacked on an XBox. How is someone else doing something a waste of my time? I don't even own an XBox!
Yup, a link for Freevo and the xbox+freevo lovin' is here.
--
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
How to run Win32 apps on the Xbox
by
yerricde
·
· Score: 1
Where are these hacks?
One hack to run Win32 apps on the Xbox console is Wine.
Another is running Microsoft Windows within VMware or the old version of Plex86 (back when it was a VMware replacement and not a clone of User Mode Linux).
Re:How to run Win32 apps on the Xbox
by
drinkypoo
·
· Score: 1
Those aren't hacks any more, since they're done with commercial software. That's just installing some shit. I say commercial because what good is it without acceleration? You need, like, DirectX these days.
Also, neither one is quite acceptable. VMWare has 24(!) megs of overhead for a virtual machine, or something like that - No big deal for a normal desktop system, but even if you have an xbox which could technically be upgraded to 128MB ram, that's a lot of work, and still too much overhead. With a system that cramped, you need to be running one operating system at a time.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
Borg_5x8
·
· Score: 1
Sorry, did you say "huge contender", or huge controller?;)
Ack, kidding moderator! Kidding! I couldn't let this one go!
XBox hackers are wasting everyone's time.
by
ubikkibu
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· Score: 1
Why bother? Redmond is just sitting back and watching how everyone breaks or works around the firmware, then updating it again, waiting and watching, updating. They are gathering data to harden Athena/Palladium, for which the XBox is a prototype, and we are playing right into it.
Not to mention that it makes little financial sense. 8GB HD, cheapo Intel processor, old NVidia chipset: I could buy a better box from several sources for little more, and just install Linux on it.
I respect the "because it's there" mentality of getting Linux to run on anything, but it would be a much studlier hack to boot a kernel on the GameCube, for example.
Re:XBox hackers are wasting everyone's time.
by
cscx
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I respect the "because it's there" mentality of getting Linux to run on anything
Unfortunately I don't think the 'because it's there' thought process will get anyone very far. At some point someone needs to realize that their time is worth more than needlessly wasting it on disassembling something with no value to them in the future whatsoever. I could take my television apart because I can as well; however outside of "WHOO HOO I TOOK APART MY TV!!! I AM SO SMART!" there is no socially redeeming value whatsoever. Just think what ELSE you could be doning with your time.
I think much of this X-Box shite has to do with the "sticking it to the man" beef that everyone around here seems to have with Microsoft. But seriously, they are not taking a cut anymore, I can pretty much assure you of that. Sure people could run Linux on their toaster if they really wanted to, but there is no socially redeeming value to doing that either.
Don't you think Dell would start cranking out cheap, powerful Linux boxes at the first whiff of a MS branded computer?
-- Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
The real hack would be NOT hacking the XBox
by
ubikkibu
·
· Score: 1
Let me paint a picture:
The hacker community as a whole retreats from XBox hacking activities, having intelligently decided that it is not worth violating the DMCA and generally stirring up the currently hostile legislative environment for the sake of running Linux on a substandard PC.
Microsoft relaxes and takes comfort in its apparently unbreakable firmware. Indeed, they settle on something very similar for the future Palladium platform implementation. These evil new PCs start flooding the market, forcing Redmond's ideas of DRM onto many users.
Then, those same hackers begin again in earnest on a much more worthwhile hacking project: stopping Microsoft from turning our own computers against us.
I have a dream.
Re:Wow, $336! Save $3 over a 2.53GHz Dell!
by
Thing+1
·
· Score: 1
You didn't read the entire posting (which was updated 4/28, today is 5/19); it says at the bottom:
4/28 Update: The 10% coupon has expired so the final price is now $399.
Not quite as good a deal as your subject; you're paying an additional $63 for the Dell.
Also, looking at Dell's site it appears that the deal is over. The PC is now $499 (no rebate, it's now "$100 Instant Savings"), and only has a "free upgrade" for the hard drive, from 30 GB to 60 GB. barbeque
-- I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Bunnie has selective memory
by
filmcritic
·
· Score: 0
Yes it's true. He stated in that article something about locking an Xbox to only play legitimate official games is the next thing to locking a PC down to only run windows. He might have been better off not making an ass out of himself with that one. As anyone can tell you, the PS2 and Gamecube have mechanisms built in that do the exact same thing, it's standard practice in the console world. One more egghead ramming his foot right down his gullet due to being tech-political.
Xbox = Mostly Standard Components
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Here's a thought - Since the Xbox is little more than a very specialized Intel based PC, shouldn't it be possible to replicate the entire hardware base? So instead of making an Xbox run Linux, shouldn't we be able to build an x86 machine that runs Xbox games?
I suppose the three big things I see as possible problems are the nVidia chip (Is that chip available in a PC based card?), the weird DVD drive, and the strange partitioning the Xbox does. The hard drive should be easy enough to duplicate - EvoX already has the capability to prepare a HD for Xbox use in the actual Xbox. And we've already seen that someone has made a standard DVD player work in an Xbox, so we should be good there.
I currently use my modded Xbox to stream music and videos from my desktop PC as well as to browse the web via GentooX/Mozilla. I think it's great, but would love to have a faster proc and more memory to actually run Linux at a decent speed. Since I use Linux almost solely for browsing on my Xbox, I suppose it would make me happy if someone ported Mozilla over to run as an.xbe natively on a modded Xbox instead of in Linux.
Opportuinity
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Im a business major so this is my train of thought: Why not give the people what they want, market the xbox as a cheap little computer entertainment center.
MAking a few changes to the system cant be much of an effort if every joe smith out there is doing it in their living room. Maybe they could retool the unit or something...I dont really feel like reading up on the literature (if you can call it that) but maybe they could sell an Xbox makeover package (in addition to that stupid DVD remote that you have to pay 30$ for if you want to watch movies) that does the same things all those websites instruct you to do.
Well, they way I see it, they loose $100 per unit sold. So if they sell 500 units, they loose $5000. Which sucks, until you realie that those 500 people might buy a total of 5 games apiece, let's say. If MS gets $5 per game, they make back $2500. Now imagine once they get caught up to Sony for the sheer number of titles availible. Each person, over the length of their X-Box ownership, buys say 20-25 games. It starts to add up in MS's favor, as slowly over time they make their money back. (These figures, you might note, are made up, but this is how the actual scheme of things is working).
If people bought X-Boxen just to watch movies and play music, Microsoft loses $100 on that unit, and has no chance of recovering it. Not that everyone would buy it and not play games, but it's better if 100% of customers are buying games. Even those who mod their X-Box are playing games, what geek doesn't love a good game now and then?
That made me think of something funny. Everyone buy X-Boxes for you AND your friends and mod them for video and music etc. Then dont' buy any games! DEATH TO MICROSOFT!!! Err....okay time for bed;-)
Well, they way I see it, they loose $100 per unit sold. So if they sell 500 units, they loose $5000.
You might want to run this through your calculator first...
Tired of people that do not know arithmetic
by
jotaeleemeese
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If you don't buy anything related to the Xbos MS earns 0, nada, zilch, nil.
If you buy only the Xbox they are recouping 140 or wahtever dollars. Do the maths wise one.
Now, don't be stupid. This argument is the most idiotic one in the history of/.
If you want to hurt MS don't buy their products. If you want to hurt them even more, don't use their products at all (i.e. don't buy second hand, don't pirate stuff you criminal, drop their stuff as fast as you can).
I try to avoid people with shoddy legal and ethical records when making business. MS is no different on this respect.
Common people, you are clever guys, what is going on????
-- IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Is anybody using the Xbox as a low-cost server?
by
alizard
·
· Score: 1
Is it "worth doing"?
Another Linux use for an X-box... render farms.
I could imagine easily a room full of XBoxes, each of which MS took a loss on, offering low cost and OK performance in either server or render farm or parallel supercomputing.
Yes, I'm saying "imagine a Beowulf cluster of h4xx0rd Xboxes".
Is the optical setup I/O or simply output, and if it's true I/O, can this be used for a cheap optical high-speed LAN?
Why is this a good or bad idea? Are any of these ideas cost-effective? Has anyone tried any of this?
Re:Is anybody using the Xbox as a low-cost server?
by
taradfong
·
· Score: 1
Is it a bad idea to build a hoard of XBoxen as a Beowulf cluster? Well, some clusters are processor bound, and won't scale with more nodes. The XBox is fast, but not that fast compared to a dual processor Xeon. OTOH, communications-bound clusters need fast interconnect; like 1000mbit or proprietary systems like Myrinet. Here, you'd be stuck with the built in 100mbit (at least I think it's 100mibt...)
But for a certain class of clustering needs it would work. I think doing povray renderings would work wonderfully.
Also, big iron pro clusters rely on server management, monitoring and such; features built into only high-end server equipment. Pros would shy away from using this for a major cluster project for that reason alone.
--
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
Ah, Microsoft Speak of the Week
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
From the CNet article about Microsoft licencing UNIX from SCO we see:
Late Sunday, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said acquiring the license from SCO "is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing.
I guess you can thank SCO for this latest round of name calling from Microsoft.
AMD Duron 1.1 GHz processor with 3DNow! technology
200 MHz frontside bus
128 MB SDRAM, expandable to 1 GB
133 MHz memory speed
10 GB Ultra-DMA hard drive, 5400 rpm (total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment)
52x CD-ROM drive
Integrated video with up to 64 MB shared, default setting 16 MB
Integrated AC97 Soft Audio
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet connection
ATX mid-tower case (17.5"D x 7.5 "W x 15"H)
Available drive bays: two 5.25-inch external, two 3.5-inch external
Available slots: 2 PCI
High-speed serial port
Parallel port
2 USB 1.1 ports
Game port
104-key keyboard
2-button mouse with wheel
Audio port (line-in, line-out, mic-in)
Stereo speakers
1-year warranty, return to Microtel
Operating system is not included
How is this comparable ? It has no video out, it doesn't have a DVD drive. It has no advanced sound. It's ugly and noisy. It takes ages to boot. They don't even dare to say which graphic adapter it has. It's a shared memory one so I guess it sucks very hard (Yeah I know the XBox too, but Xbox apps take that into account).
Re:Because consoles are not about GFX or Online...
by
TheNetAvenger
·
· Score: 1
No they weren't original titles for the XBox, I never meant to imply that.
However, the point that was being made is that because of the ease in cross platform development, PC games are more likely only to be ported to the XBox or come out on the XBox far in advance of the other console release dates.
XBox game development is one of its strongest features, as most game developers will agree with. Microsoft took great pains in ensuring that the model the XBox uses for development is easy. (Follow the pre-reviews that are still on the Web before the XBox was released and the vast developer support of its game development specifications.)
Game developers can target the PC and quickly move the game to the XBox with little modification. They don't have to do things that are done on other consoles to get the best performance out of the games.
Take the PS2 for example, even with what graphics potential it has, it takes a lot of development and design to get the game to play well by pushing the right bits down the right pipes at the right time. It is a far cry from DirectX based development environment that PC game designers and XBox game designers enjoy.
DirectX does quite well at removing the developer from the tweaking of hardware to achieve game performance, and instead lets the graphics card manufacturers do the driver tweaking to offer the performance to developers. (Hence the big DirectX9 support and benchmarks debate now.)
When OpenGL stopped its progression towards a 3D standard that was conducive to upcoming graphic accelerated games on the PC environment, Microsoft made a radical shift to develop its own technology; hence the creation of DirectX (WinG, etc).
Many people think Microsoft made DirectX to compete with OpenGL, but at the time Microsoft wanted OpenGL to become what it has become and then there wouldn't be the need for DirectX. It was the reluctance of the industry to move OpenGL to a gaming model and create an interface between video hardware acceleration and applications, which in turn forced Microsoft to create the WinG and DirectX layers.
Microsoft pushed the OpenGL standard to move in that direction a long time before they ever had plans to create their own layer (DirectX).
As most know and remember NT supported OpenGL far before DirectX was conceived of, as it was to be the standard for the NT OS for the next generation of video and gaming.
It is just too bad OpenGL didn't move to create that level of complexity and hardware support at the time.
But then again, having two standards, OpenGL and DirectX, that are now somewhat in competition is a good thing. It has pushed DirectX to natively support and even push the limits of the graphic card manufacturers capabilities. (Again, hence the new GeforceFX and ATI9700/9800)
cromwell bios should be totally legit ...
by
timothy
·
· Score: 1
you wrote: "so the only way to make this work legally is to transfer ownership (probably physically) to the modchip seller temporarilly. Or else sell a kit with a blank bios and means to write/patch the bios yourself."
I don't know why that should be true with the Cromwell BIOS, since it contains no MS code and does not allow running of unsigned code. (I'm not presenting that as a final argument -- it's just my understanding that the Cromwell BIOS is completely legal and aboveboard.)
There is still room for a home computer
by
master_p
·
· Score: 1
I think there is still a room for a home computer ala C64 or an Amiga:
1) an all-include case with a keyboard, video and audio ports, dvd-rom, floppy disk, mouse and keyboard ports
2) a RISC type processor with a clean assembly language; in the range of 500 to 1000 MHz
3) standard graphics and sound hardware; on par with an ATI 8500 / Audigy; 64 MB video ram
4) 256 MB RAM
5) flashable ROM bios with the basics of the operating system so as that boot times are minimized
6) a BASIC-derived language that is compiled/interpreted and includes libraries for everything the machine can do; preferrably object-oriented
7) a suite of programs packaged with it: word processor, spreadsheet, drawing and painting application, sound & music application, the aforementioned BASIC development environment, an internet browser
8) modem slot; takes either 56K or ISDN or other type of modem
9) packaged with one two button mouse and a joypad; the machine would have at least 4 joypad slots
10) packaged with a 20 MB hard disk
11) a very simple unix-like operating system with preemptive multitasking
I think it could cost under 400$, given the right choice of component suppliers. It need not be top-notch, after all. It would be semi-portable, hooked to a telly as well as a monitor.
Personally, I would love such a machine. I could take it everywhere, on every trip, hook it on the telly, play my favorite games, browse the internet, whatever. Have it in the living room, as well as the bedroom. It would not be plugged with driver problems, since the hardware would be standard.
I think that a machine like that would have many targets:
1) the back-bedroom programmers
2) those who grew up on C64/Amiga/Atari ST/Amstrad/Spectrum/MSX and really miss those plug-n-play situations
3) the people that want a cheap computer
4) the people that want to be introduced to computers
5) kids that want to play games, provided some good games are written for it; it would be like a console: stick the CD/DVD in the drive, let the game be played.
6) people that travel a lot and want their machine with them; a had a friend once that carried his Amiga 600 with him in a suitcase when he travelled abroad. Of course they could get a portable PC, but it would not be the same: a portable has a small keyboard not really fit for typing a lot of things (certainly not for developing applications), it can't be hooked to a TV and it costs much more. PCs are not intergrated systems and there are bound to maintenance problems.
Re:There is still room for a home computer
by
tchapin
·
· Score: 1
Actually, the computer you're describing is similar to the "desktop replacement" laptops that are in the marketplace now. They have almost full-sized keyboards, which is great for when you're on the road, and allow external keyboards / mice to be plugged in as well. In addition, many laptops now sport TV-out; I know that a number of Dells and Sonys do, at the least.
While I think that your imaginary product is sort of interesting (I still run my C128, and love it), I'm not sure that I see the benefit / difference between a laptop and/or console. It sounds like you are combining them in a way that doesn't support any of the existing software out there. Based on that, I think that it would be an extremely difficult sell to anyone other than hobbyists as a workstation / computer, rather than a console w/ added features.
Todd
-- --
!todd erases a red dot!
I steal music on the internet.
Re:There is still room for a home computer
by
master_p
·
· Score: 1
Yes, the combatibility problem always exists. If I was to market it, I would market it firstly as a top of the line console, and secondly as a computer. When it would infiltrate homes and people would see that aside from games they can use productivity software, they would buy it.
The key point is that PCs scare people, because they are complicated beasts. On the other hand, my imaginary computer would be simple to use, as simple as possible. And it would not have the update problems, since it would use standard hardware.
Of course, this is a dream of mine from 10 years ago when the market was virgin. It's good to dream though, you never know what will come up.
Next platform to haack
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
For $200,
Apex ADR1000 Progressive Scan DVD Player, with 40gb hard disk
* Single-disc progressive-scan DVD player renders seamless images on HD and HD-ready TVs * 40 GB hard drive stores up to 40 hours of programming (offers time-shifted viewing, timed recording) * Plays MP3 and WMA CDs, JPEG and Kodak picture CDs * Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel digital output (for immersive surround sound when used with a compatible AV receiver) * Includes Apex Full-screen Function for viewing widescreen movies in full-screen on 4:3 TVs
* In the box: DVD player/disk recorder, remote control, user's manual, stereo analog audio interconnect/composite-video cable
* Disc capacity: 1
* Progressive scan: Yes
* Playback formats: DVD-Video (NTSC), red book CD, CD-R, CD-RW, JPEG image CD, Kodak Picture CD, MP3 CD, WMA CD
* Aspect ratio control: Yes
* Dialog enhancer: No
* Integrated receiver: No
* Multi-angle viewing: Yes (with applicable discs)
* Frame advance: Yes
* Still/freeze frame: Yes
* Karaoke: No
* Recording capability: Yes (hard-disk recording only)
* Reverse-frame step: Yes
* Slow motion: Yes
* Text display: No
* VCR capability: No
* Audio outputs: 1 stereo analog (left/right), 2 digital (1 optical, 1 coaxial)
* Headphone jack: No
* Video outputs: 3 (composite-, component-, and S-video)
* Surround-sound output: Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel passthrough
* THX-certified: No
* Channel-block capability: No
* Built-in satellite receiver: No
* Advance programming: Yes
* Games included: None
* Infrared port: No
* Instant messaging: No
* Interactive television: No
* Internet capability: No
* Keyword search: No
* Hard-drive storage capacity: 40 GB
* Maximum recording time: 40 hours
* Monthly fee: None
* Movies on demand: No
* Picture-in-picture (PIP): No
* Program recommendations: No
* Number of programs recorded at once: 1
* Analog phone jack: 1
* USB port: No
* IR blaster: No
* Universal remote included: Yes
* Web-based control: No
* Live TV buffering: Yes
* Onscreen magazine: No
* Pause live TV: Yes * Warranty: 1 year parts and 90 days labor
And mod THIS parent up too
by
usotsuki
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· Score: 1
LMAO
OK, I don't agree about the Speccy, but I think it's funny. C64 was the leetness box, but I like the Apple//e *g*
PC's that only run Windows
by
56ksucks
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· Score: 1
This article mentioned something about PC's that only run Windows. I don't think this is a problem. People that want to run Linux usually build their own PC anyway. The common pc users who buy PC's off the shelf only know Windows, so they aren't going to care about Linux. Personally, wheither I run Windows or Linux, I'll only own a PC that I build myself. The real threat comes when us geeks want to run Windows for compatibility reasons and they change Windows to only work on PC's that only work with Windows. That might actually help their competition though because it would force people to use Linux on their home built machines.
--
----
"Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Re:Wow, $336! Save $3 over a 2.53GHz Dell!
by
SatanicPuppy
·
· Score: 1
Everyone keeps talking about Dell's cheap assed computers. I could hammer together a clone for the same price which would CRUSH any Dell, and when you called me on the phone for tech support and I told you to go F*** yourself, you'd see that my tech support is better than theirs too!
Dell has started using some of the shoddiest parts I've ever seen. Their tech support is terrible; I had a damn harddrive crap out last week, click click click, and they ran me through hoops for almost TWO hours before they'd agree to send me a replacement.
And Dell RAID controllers! #@%^#!$^%^Q#$ BASTARDS! They go down more often than a 5 cent whore! And Dell loses the data EVERY TIME!@!!
For a $350 dell, I'd be REAL suspicious. Crappy onboard graphics and sound stapled to a board stamped out by Crazy Wong's house of cheap hardware in Korea.
Just my opinion.
-- ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
...there is no socially redeeming value whatsoever.
...but there is no socially redeeming value to doing that either.
Slashdot is now a forum for discussing ony those things that you think to be socially redeeming? What a pompus ass you must be in the real world. Yup, the standard by which all opensource software projects will be judged against will henceforth be your 'socially redeeming value' litmus test. Thanks for opening our eyes.
If I buy an xbox, I'll do with it what I please. That won't change until they start leasing the game equipment to end users. And just how many would lease an xbox? Not many.
If I use the 007 savegame method, there isn't even any hardware modifying needed to get linux running. For gaming I already have a much better platform. Have you compared playing UT on a playstation2 versus a pc with good keyboard and mouse? The pc wins easily, makes me wonder why people want consoles for playing games...:)
--
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Slashdot is now a forum for discussing ony those things that you think to be socially redeeming? What a pompus ass you must be in the real world. Yup, the standard by which all opensource software projects will be judged against will henceforth be your 'socially redeeming value' litmus test. Thanks for opening our eyes.
This explains a few things, like, for instance why most SourceForge projects are still in "Phase 1 - Planning." Hey, if you find of any value the 14,654th replacement for biff or another MP3 player, etc... that's your fancy. It won't be my time that's wasted, I can guarantee you that.
By the way, the 'pompous ass' comment earned you a trip to my foes list.
Freshmeat shows 31 versions of biff and most of them look useful for different configurations. Keep in mind that when people program for free that they generally work on projects that they find interesting. Please point us to the remaining 14,623 biff replacements, some of them may be useful.
Thanks for adding me to your foes list, I will be sleeping better now that my life dosen't revolve around meeting your 'socially redeeming value' scale.
--
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Is that really the case they put on those cheap things?
I've sold $20 plastimetal cases that have more upgradability (and style) than that 1990's trash. Blech.
No wonder the things are so cheap. Dell downgrades you from conductive plastimetal to just plain plastic.
Then again, I love working on Dells (and other name brand PCs). I have no qualms about doubling my usual rates. Fact is the consumer shows their willingness to cough up the dough (because it says Dell on the PC) and most of these cheap name-brand PCs have hell-on-earth cases to work with, even today. At least most have gotten rid of the proprietary parts (apart from the motherboard and case).
Yes, I got a lot of repeat business from these customers, so either I give deep discounts already, my service is too good to be true, or I'm right and Dell sells you what you pay for (minus some extra fat corporate profits!)
-- If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Re:"Nintendo has historically done a far worse job
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Slashdot Mirror
it's also a "brief", but UNinteresting article summary!
From USA Today? USA... friggin... Today?
spend the extra $50 and get enough memory to actually run X...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
ATTENTION PEOPLE: This is not bashing, this is bashing for a reason. I'm not gonna say XBOX sucks and that's it. I am gonna proove what i have to say with actual reasons. You are entitled to your own opinion, but then again so am I.
Now to get on with my post, the first place to start off is the origin of the XBOX. When the PS2 was announced at E3, the president of Sony made some remark about the PS2 being able to take over the "living room". Microsoft got scared by that. Hence the first problem. The living room was never Microsoft's territory to begin with, so why start now? Sony was not making any direct threats, it was all just hype. But nooonooonoooo Microsoft won't belive that. So they hire their engineers to make a system cobbled together out of (then) brand new PC parts and a EXTREMELY powerful GPU (graphics processing unit.) This was the next fact, whereas console technology only advances every 3-5 years, PC technology can be considered obsolete as soon as you get it. Since the XBOX was a long time in development, XBOX was not the most powerful gaming device but rather 2nd place to a high end Alienware desktop.
Now that we have the origins over with I would like to point out specific weakneses of the system.
First of all, let's talk about graphics. While the XBOX's graphics are impressive to some, the NVIDIA GPU makes them all look like Quake 2. Except for Splinter Cell, but that looks like Quake 3. Unlike the anti-aliased graphics of Super Mario Sunshine (it looks like a CGI movie) we get graphics that look like a 3 year old PC. To be fair, the XBOX has some good looking games, but that brings me to the next point: gameplay.
While the XBOX has some good looking games, they are PC games through and through. Most of them have great graphics but convoluted and contrived gameplay that feels like a rehash of a Quake style PC game. The controller doesnt help matters either because the Model 1 controller is too bigi and bulky to actually be responsive. Which is another trend in the PC industry. To be fair however they did release the Controller S and you can get a VERY small controller called MicroCon. Also the games, theyre not just shooters, but shooters and sports. Rally racing, football, basketball, you name it in the sports catergory, they have it. Racing and sports + shooters= Only %10 of the console audience satisfied.
I would like to hear what you folks have to say on the matter, but please try to act civilized. It helps no one to act like "dood U suk Cuz you L1K3 Xb0x" or "P$2 r0xOrs" or "GODAMN YOU YOU SUCK I'M GONNA RIP YOUR BALLS OFF!". It only makes you look stupid. Let's represent our favorite consoles with the diginty and respect they deserve by stating our points in a calm and respectful manner. AWW WHAT THE **** AM I SAYING? XBOX SUCKS!
.... still losing money on each of these things?
Get your own free personal location tracker
The xbox has replaced my dreamcast as the emulator box of choice, i already have a few nice computers :)
quick swap of the stock hd for a nice 80gig, throw on your emulators and roms, and viola, punch out courtesy of ms.
I don't like the portrayal that people are "hacking" (in the media term) their XBOXes.. I'd call it unleashing hidden features.
Microsoft's attempt to "lock down" the Xbox's parts is a prelude to using similar techniques to keep PCs from running anything but Windows.
Could this really happen? How would Microsoft deny having a monopoly if they went this route?
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
XBox running non MS software. How much more elite can that be? It poses an interesting question. Can we make it run GL?
Something like this
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Yeah, $336 is nice for a PC and all, now if it can just be hacked to play video games, I'm sold!!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Make that more like $236, with no disk upgrade, which as I mentioned before is unnecessary. Actually, I think it will cost you a little MORE than that, though. It's $30 for a decent modchip, something that's updatable from a CD. You also have to pay shipping on cables to hook up USB, or you have to make cables out of Xbox extension cables and USB extension cables, which probably ain't much cheaper. Also, to get digital audio out of it you have to spend another $20. (That also gets you S-Video, though, it even comes with an S-Video cable to get you started... it's lousy but it works.)
Then again, you can get an Xbox used for $130. So maybe it's actually not so expensive. Why buy an Xbox with a warranty if you're just going to void it anyway?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hackers use Xbox for more than games
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
SEATTLE -- Microsoft's strategy of selling the Xbox, its video game console, at a loss has wrought an unforeseen consequence. Some users increasingly view the Xbox as a cheap appliance easily rigged to operate as a fully functioning personal computer.
The Xbox is being hacked so it can be used for more than playing video games.
By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY
Forget zapping aliens. Thousands are souping up their Xboxes to house movies and music, serve up Web pages, even write software. All it takes is a few hundred dollars and free tip sheets on the Web.
Microsoft's news Wednesday that it is dropping the price of a new Xbox $20 to $180 could drive more users to give it a try.
The software giant views the $100 or so it loses on each Xbox as the price of entry to compete against Sony's dominant PlayStation 2 gaming console. While it says it will attack hackers on a case-by-case basis, analysts say the company has so far tolerated the Xbox hacking as an unavoidable nuisance. "I don't think they see it as a major threat," says Jay Horwitz, game analyst at Jupiter Research.
Not just for games
In part, he says, that may be because the activities are relegated to the tech savvy, a small part of all Xbox users. It's also not a new problem. Shortly after Xbox hit stores in November 2001, hackers set to work cracking the technology intended to restrict the Xbox to playing Xbox games.
But it does highlight the complexity of Microsoft's struggles to make its products more secure. Because Xbox has so much capability, hackers have found it works well as:
Media hubs. Unlike a PC tower, the compact Xbox fits well next to the TV. By adding a start-up chip and a bigger hard drive, the Xbox morphs into an inexpensive media center for storing and playing a vast amount of games, movies and music. The TV screen serves as a monitor.
XboxHacker.com, one of several Web sites packed with information on building Xbox media hubs, logs 8,000 visitors a week. "It's like putting custom parts on your car," says Webmaster Ken Robinson, a dockworker and amateur programmer in Federal Way, Wash.
Linux PCs. A group called the Xbox Linux Project advocates bypassing the Xbox's Windows operating system and replacing it with the free Linux operating system. This lets users run a wide variety of free software. More than 150,000 copies of Linux for the Xbox have been downloaded, says founder Michael Steil, a computer science student from Munich, Germany.
Linux is continually improved by volunteer programmers worldwide, and Microsoft considers it to be one of its biggest competitive threats. Steil says Linux Xboxes are being increasingly used as Web-site servers and to write new Linux programs.
Web tunnels. Microsoft charges gamers $4 a month to use Xbox Live, its fledgling online gaming service. It hopes to add more subscribers and raise the fee. But GameSpy.com and XBConnect.com offer free "tunneling" software that lets Xbox gamers interact with each other online using unmodified Xboxes. GameSpy President Jonathan Epstein said it took technicians just two days after the Xbox went on sale to create the first Xbox Internet tunnel. "We did it to show we're really cool technologists," Epstein says. While some Xbox hacking -- copying games, for one -- is illegal, tunneling, installing Linux and building media hubs fall into the gray area of what rights owners have to change a technology once they've paid for it.
Microsoft is pursuing several initiatives that could make it illegal to tamper with hardware embedded with certain security codes.
In addition to saying it'll stop illegal hacking, Microsoft also warns that opening the Xbox -- required to install hardware -- voids the warranty. "We're very committed to respecting the intellectual property rights of others, and we request the same respect for our innovations and those of our partners," says J. Allard, Xbox platform vice president.
Everything I say is a lie...
Just because there's been 150,000 copies donloaded doesn't mean 150,000 XBoxen have been modded. I'm sure there's people who have downloaded it and not installed it(I do that to software often =/)and on the flip side I'm sure there's peopel who DL it and install on multiple. I'd take a guess and say the former is more common than the latter.
And to the idiot that said XBox games look like Quake 2, well you're just that - an idiot. The XBox is the technically superior system. It also IMO has the best controler - too bad it's games suck =/
By all means, if you run out of clever or interesting things to troll about, just bring up Mr Gates. Lots of people hate him and will be glad to agree with you.
Also, whatever you do to the Xbox should be considered fair use. When you mess with the hardware, all that MS should be able to do is deny you warrany. Car manufacturers already do this. Think of the people that modify their cars and put in turbos and superchargers. If/when their engine craps out, the dealership or whatever doesn't have to cover anything since what you did to your car has voided your warrany.
My point is MS has no right to take any legal action against any of these "illegal hacking" projects and should just leave them alone. Fair use is fair use.
1) sell at great loss to undercut competition
2) still not beat competition
3) ???
4) total domination and billions of $$$
i REEEEAALLLY wish i knew step 3
YOU SUCK BALLS!
I accidently modded this down (mouse wheel) and since i cant give it points back please somebody do the right thing
which runs the Linux OS can be had from wal-mart for >$100 less.
I'm sorry, I don't see the appeal of this?
Of course they're losing money for every unit sold. In some countries this is called "dumping" which is illegal. I'm curious why no one has spanked them on this issue. Nintendo has always stated that their systsme costs under 100 to make, and no one really knows about Sony, but it's safe to assume they're making a profit as well.
now we know what to expect from a SPIC!!! :)
XBOX HACKS YOU!!!
By replacing the words "lock down" with "trusted computing"
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
More storage, memory and speed, and apps to boot. even if you hate Windows (though I don't know why), you can throw on something else. No hacking needed. I've even seen PowerEdge systems in the $260 range.
Sell back the shift key to deadsaijinx* for billions of $$.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I like crazy shit like that.
I feel a Simpsons quote coming coming on... no... must resist...
"Sorry, Donkey Kong, you're just not a draw anymore"
You may not agree with what I'm saying but I'll kill you for my right to say it
It's about FUN GAMES. Period. Something which Nitnendo has been dominating Sony and Microsoft since the early 80s. Nothing has ever sold more than Mario and Zelda. You mention HALO, that's fine.. What else is there? Nothing... Thats why! You can give crap games all the online stuff in the world and they'll still be a crap game. In online gaming on the PC where people are used to playing againts thousands of users, 8-24 player deathmatch is simply lacking, they shouldn't even bother. Just my lame opinion, I know.. But yes, Microsoft is the runt of the three, they have no idea what they're doing, so they've gone the route of "hey, lets make this thing JUST like the computer I own already and see if anyone notices!" ..
Only logged in Trolls and Crapflooders can claim first poast.
YFR.YHL.HAND
On the same page as the article explaining how you can have a really compact PC for $336 by modding the x-box is an advertisement for Dell computers with free shipping.
That gets me thinking...maybe Microsoft needs to abandon the whole losing money on the xbox to compete with the playstation 2 strategy and start charging more for it and advertise the modding--and compete with companies such as Dell and Gateway :)
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
~~~
Why would they want that? They make money from Live subscriptions and game sales. People who mod their XBox are unlikely to purchase either.
I agree that anyone who purchases an XBox should be free to do with it what they want, but to claim that mods are in Microsoft's best interest is wrong. MS will continue to support legislation that makes modifying these units illegal.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
The irony is that although Microsoft sell you the hardware, you still can't run Windows* on it, just Linux.
:o)
Nice to see that Microsoft are taking the whole antitrust thing seriously and rolling out subsidised Linux based terminals
*Yes, except for the cut down version of the 2K kernel it ships with, I know.
Beep beep.
Did you actually read the article?
That quote is attributed to a kid who runs an XBox hacking site. What you're doing here is akin to saying "someone on Slashdot said that Microsoft is going to lock down PCs! How is Microsoft denying this?!?"
Not that I don't agree with the sentiment, but this quote doesn't come from anyone associated with Microsoft.
By putting Linux on, will my games run better? Christ... I'm gonna go install Linux on my toaster, too.
Since MS is losing money on the XBox, as indicated in the story, couldn't one assist in MS' decline by purchasing as many XBoxes as was available? So, following that logic, everyone who loathes MS needs to go out and buy an XBox (but no games.)
Just a thought...
Thanks for being a pain in the ass and accusing me of not reading the article.
that funny my XBOX came with 20GIG...
I wonder if this is going to bring out all the zealots?
in 10 years when Redhat has achieved total domination and released their new home entertainment system there will be a rush to see who will be the first to port win2010 to it and then posting to cfullcolon to brag about their l33t skillz and demanding the right to be allowed install the home entertainment systems as their car stereo if they so choose without being forced to make their car available to anyone who wants to drive it under the terms of the new Redhat GPL
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
How much does slashdot recieves from microsoft for posting stories that sell more XBOXs like this one
How droll. Learn the difference between ACCEPT and EXCEPT, you illiterate, Microsoft cheerleader.
But it does highlight the complexity of Microsoft's struggles to make its products more secure. Because Xbox has so much capability...
You'd think that MS would embrace this community and use thier advances as a selling point for the X-Box. Maybe they could make software of this type an official release. The whole idea of the media hub seems to be what most companies are moving towards today, so you would think that MS would want software of this type running on its system.
SIGFAULT
See BBC News today , they have a war game that runs on one. Is this preparation for dealing with those individuals that won't run a M$ operating system ?
The problem is that Microsoft will show the numbers to game developers. "See? We are selling tons of these. You really should write your game for XBox, if you want to push product." Of course, that could fall apart for Microsoft and the game developers if none of the games sell well. If the game developers neglect other platforms like PS2 and Gamecube, however, people would probably go for the only game in town.
The article stated that they do not yet feel threatened by the Xbox hacking. I think it is only a matter of time before they start cracking down. A 180.00 Xbox can be used as an 1,800.00 Media Center PC that Microsoft is currently trying to sell to consumers.
People have always wanted the most bang for their buck, and they always will. There is really nothing Microsoft can do about it either.
Microsoft thanks you, Linux community!
Ona quick note, Microsoft doesn't mind hacking the Xbox to make it into something more; if fact, MS wants that done... but not right now... and not by someone who hasn't been licensed to develop software/hardware. I've watched a week-long dedication to hacking the XBox on TechTV a little while ago, and I saw Windows Media Player on the thing. I don't own any console, but what does XBox run OS-wise? Is it Windows CE or some mutant form of it? Can I get a keyboard, web browser, a dialup modem, and maybe have a better WebTV? If it can run Linux, does that mean I can install Slackware straight from CD?
Have you heard of the original Nintendo? Or Super Nintendo? Consoles existed before 1999. Nintendo once had games for a very wide audience (some would argue they still do, but that's not important right now).
Damn, some good points, who the hell would put it as offtopic?!
While it says it will attack hackers on a case-by-case basis, analysts say the company has so far tolerated the Xbox hacking as an unavoidable nuisance.
:P
Alright, im still having trouble with people selling others hardware products with the intentions of them using it for a specific purpose - and then suddenly its a punishable offense that they are going "attack". What business is it of theirs what I do with my XBox?
If these machines come with these kinds of restrictions I think we're still getting ripped off at 180$ a box. Im on my way to buy an XBox to modify just for spite.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Not in the Real World(tm), but then how many slashdoters live there?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
These guys are on top of things, a good system deal is always within 2 weeks of any day. Trust me, a new Dell deal will show up in a few days.
http://www.spoofee.com/
http://www.ableshoppers.com/
http://www.digitaldeals.net/
http://www.niftyness.com/nndd/donly.asp
http://www.slickdeals.net/
http://www.besync.com/shopping/default.asp
you could build your own (better) PC for about that much and you don't have to go to the trouble of hacking anything. Nforce2 motherboard w/ integrated sound, lan and Geforce4 MX - $100 Athlon XP 1700+ - $42 2x 256mb PC2700 - $86 48x24x48x CDRW - $40 40gb hard drive- $60 Cheap case and decent PSU - $50 these are SHIPPED prices from Newegg.
Repeal the DMCA!
Did it every occur to anybody that maybe Microsoft really wants people to hack X-box? They want it to become hip-to-hack. This is the sort of grassroots cool they really hunger for. Basically, the hackers create a hip new market and what the heck can MS do but jump on the bandwagon? After all their goal all along is not to make a game platform, but to build a more ubiquitous computer platform.
The heck with the Xbox PC, I'm getting me some Xbox Sized fries!
The problem is: M$ loses maybe $10 on one Xbox, gaining nothing (I buy no games). That's a really small fraction of their cash. I lose $180 and gain a piece of junk hardware, that's worth about nothing to me. That's a considerable piece of my income. That's why it's not going to work. But in the other hand - Does anyone know of any good ways to run some distributed computing by creating a big cluster of Xboxes? They really look like great machines for that! Just enough of everything to run a single "cell" of such a cluster, hardware below "stock" prices, small, reliable, standarised... Hmm, a good idea for a business. Too bad I don't have enough cash to start it.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
( from Slickdeals.net )
Dell Small Business has the Dimension 4550 2.53GHz Desktop for $339 after $200 rebate. It has AGP Slot, 4 PCI Slots, Intel 845PE chipset, 256MB DDR, 30GB HD, 48x CDRW or 16x DVD, 32MB Rage, Integrated NIC & Audio, XP Home, WordPerfect, and 1yr warranty.
Go to Dell Small Business.
Click on "Featured Systems" under the Dimension 4550 column.
Click on "Customize It" under the "Advanced Technology" column.
Select the following options:
SPECIAL OFFER! 256MB 333MHz DDR SDRAM for the price of 128MB!
FREE UPGRADE!! 16x Max DVD-ROM Drive OR FREE UPGRADE! New 48x/24x/48x Max CD-RW Drive
Optional suggested upgrades:
Pentium® 4 Processor at 2.66GHz w/533MHz front side bus/ 512K L2 Cache [add $20 or $0.75/month1]
SAVE $100! New 4x DVD+RW/+R Drive w/CD-RW [add $80 or $3/month1] SAVE $100!!
64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 MX(TM) Graphics Card with TV-Out [add $30 or $1/month1]
Continue to check out. Price should be $599.
Apply coupon code 4491A592C8BB for 10% off.
Send in the $200 rebate.
Final price is $599 - 10% ($60) - $200 rebate = $339 + tax w/ free shipping. The 2.53GHz CPU alone costs $184 at NewEgg.
Seriously. MS comming out with a proprietary PC has nothing to do with being a monopoly.
Unless they prevent me from building my own systems and running whatever I want on them, there's not an issue.
I wouldn't be shocked if MS came out with a WindowsPC. If they can put together a good PC at a good price, great for them.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I played that with my kids, and now my grandkids. They laff themselves just silly over it, for some reason the 3 year olds like to go right up to the TV and kill 'em. And that dumb dog...
No idea why, just holding and shooting that stupid gun just thrills them. They'll entertain themselves for hours with it. If this thing ever breaks, me and gramma are doomed. I've been trolling the garage sales for replacements, no can find.
Disagree, I actually own several XBox titles, and I have access through one of my clients to rent games for free as much as I like through the local video store.
Buffy, Kungfu Chaos, MechAssault, Halo, Castle Wolfensten, BaldersGate, etc, etc.
Halo isn't the 'only' good XBox game out there or I would just rent them when I wanted to play instead of buying them. Trust me...
Make your initial loss back from licensing 3rd party software for your platform. Anything after that is step 4.
This doesn't mean that the Army's using X-Boxes as you're implying. It only means that Pandemic's making an X-Box version of the simulation based upon the Army's version that they supplied.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Has anyone tried running Windows XP Embedded on an xbox? I've been working with XPe for about a week, and frankly I'm pretty impressed with the ability to select/deselect components of the OS (don't want IE, don't include IE), but it seems it would be something that someone has tested on a 'box.
No wait, Sony did that for the community.
If I had a good reason to hack an XBox I'd do it, but as it stands, it's best for playing video games. It would be fun to buy a bunch of XBoxes, mod them, and continue to screw Microsoft, though. Oh well.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
God damn, there's some insight into that shit.
From your quote about number of players I take it that PC users ONLY ever play MMORPGs online, like Everquest, sort of rules Counter Strike, Battlefield 1942, Quake, Wolfenstein etc. out of the game doesn't it?
take your head out of your ass, please.
if i wanted to, i could easily load four different linux/bsd distro's on an off-the-shelf mac
what the original post was talking about is:
how do you use linux, mac os x or solaris on your desktop in a world where every email in your organization (including the ones about brownies in the kitchen) *requires* palladium to read?
every hard-core tech could be forced to keep a windows computer on their desk (like me) even though their primary development platform is completely different
and then be forced to justify using the optimal platform for their job because it's not *standard* (and challenges tech support's ciphincter grip on the enterprise desktop environment)
spend $200 on a lindows pc. Yes, I know you'll still have no tv out, so you'll have to blow another $100 on a scan converter. You do get ethernet though, and a 1.1 gig duron :). Still, I don't like the idea of relying on something so patently illegal (note: I said illegal, not immoral) as modchips. Not that I expect microsoft to come roaring into my house and arrest me...
On the other hand, this is really cool for 2 reasons. One, it provides a real, legit, fair use reason for modchips. Two, it's gotta really tick MS off. Not only do they lose money on the hardware, but after this is done you can't play XBox games anymore, meaning MS can never make the money back.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Yeah, but there is a personal satisfaction factor you forgot to consider.
There just is no way to describe the JOY of hacking an Xbox and loading Linux onto it.
It's a real poke in the eye for Bill Gate$ and that is worth it to me.
And there's the geek factor to consider too..
There are many benefits to hacking the xbox, most of them involve personal issues...
HAHAHAHA
(yer joking right?)
If MS locks up thier hardware in a propeitary box and doesnt let you run another OS on it, its BAD, but when apple does it, its Innovative.
Riiiight.
*scoff*
This is not the body of a comment in reply to your comment.
I am not clicking the "Submit" button.
Uhh, GTA3 + vice City??? Or were you just talking about Microsoft. I'd say Considering Sony has 6 times the consoles out there they're doing something right. And show me anything in the current Nintendo crop that beats the simplicity and fun factor of GTA3? Even Myramoto agrees to that (see his recent E3 interview)
Viola is an instrument.
"Viola" is also Spanish for "he rapes", as in raping Microsoft for $100 when buying an Xbox console.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I paid $150 for a used Xbox from an EB Games in Florida, and (not technically part of the Xbox, but now intimately connected ;)) a clip-on LCD screen from intec. That was also $150, so, so far I've spent $300, but I know I need to purchase at least one more thing, which is either a modchip or a memory thingie loaded with the buffer-overflow code from the 007 game.
:)) the xbox won't run without a video output connected, and I bought this to run in my car.
... EB I figure has a decent reputation, and if the box was broke, I'd have better luck there than at Ed's Pawn & Guns.)
;)
...
:)
The reason I spent so much for a (tiny -- 5.4") LCD screen is that (so I was told by the EB clerk, at least
(Pawn-shopping, I might have found one cheaper, but
I have already downloaded one live-ISO distro for the thing (dynebolic); until I have a modchip, though, it's just a clunky but surprisingly good-sounding CD player. (The speakers on the intec screen are not outstanding, but they're decent for my tin ears.)
Why an xbox for the car? You don't have to agree with my reasoning, or taste (of which I have none), but my thoughts go like this:
1) I want a CD player for the car. I don't have one, and I happen to like my head unit (an oldish but *old* Blaupunkt system with a simple, logical control layout and a line-in), so I'd rather not pay for a CD head unit. (I also think most of them have terrible control layouts, just really bizarre design decisions.) CD player is for some music, and for the audiobooks that Cracker Barrel conveniently stocks for $3/week
2) I'd like an ogg player for the car. I've been compressing my CD collection to ogg, and it's a lot simpler to carry 3 CD-Rs than 30 CDs.
3) When stopped (or for passengers) I think a video screen is neat in a car. Futurama in DiVX, for instance. Frivolous? Yes. I would not like to spend thousands of dollars on a video system, but as a nudge toward the xbox as a possible do-everything car computer, it works.
4) With a USB hub attached and a GNU/Linux system installed, I'm hoping I can hook up a web cam and use is as a low-tech DVR for the car.
I don't care too much about games per se, and will probably be using a no-solder modchip with the Cromwell BIOS, so Xbox games are probably out, but Frozen Bubble
If anyone would like to offer a memory card with the hack that makes a modchip unnecessary (for a fair price), let me know quick, before I order a regular modchip
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Uh, didn't Bunnie graduate a while back? I certainly hope so, as we've been trying to lure him back to the Right Coast for the past year...
Didn't Castle Wolfensten (assuming you mean RTCW as the original wouldn't say much for the Xbox's power) and Baulders Gate first come out for the PC? So really they aren't exactly original titles...whereas most of the titles for the other consoles either are exclusive to consoles or they come out for the PC a few months/years later (GTA3).
rsilvergun wrote: Still, I don't like the idea of relying on something so patently illegal (note: I said illegal, not immoral) as modchips.
:)
I know you also said "[xbox hacking] provides a real, legit, fair use reason for modchips," but I don't think your first statement is correct. A modchip loaded with an illegally BIOS would be illegal -- but for one that's blank, or loaded with the Cromwell BIOS, I don't know why that should be true.
And on that note, a no-solder modchip with the Cromwell bios seems like a reasonable enough upgrade -- less than the cost of the ethernet module for a Dreamcast
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
You have to realize, like you said nintendo has been in the market for a LONG time. MS just joined not long ago, and for being a newcomer, they are doing fairly well. They would go under imo if they didn't have the windows money backing them. Granted lately there haven't been a whole lot of games coming out, let alone for any systems. They don't have the amount of games that Sony has, or the 'figureheads' Nintendo has.(Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc) But one of the smartest things they are doing, and doing better then Sony and Nintendo, is Xbox Live. It's incredible compared to the other two. I suggest you pickup xbl, unreal championship and wolfenstein. And sports games if you like, but I enjoy wolf and unreal. Also, look at some titles MS has coming out, from Rare too, some amazing games coming out. They wont kill Nintendo or Sony, but I think given some time they will be a huge contender. And I think XBL by next year will be huge. By then they will have many many more titles, and lots more downloadable content. I mean how much does getting free level in Splinter Cell own?
at this rate, we'll only have to buy up a shade over 26 million of these puppies to eat up Microsoft's $4 billion cash reserve. The Empire is about to fall!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
If you really want to hurt Microsoft' buy only their competition's products, write letters to OEMs demanding no to the Microsoft tax, and encourage the use of Linux in your workplace/school/home.
If you can replace just one future purchase of a single Windows machine, you knock $500-$1000 out of Microsoft's hands. That really hurts them in the only place they care about.
The xbox mediaplayer website says (in the FAQ) "For legal reasons, no Xbox(TM) binaries will be released from us or distributed by us until a legal non-MS compiler is available (so please do not ask for any files not posted here). (Note! XDK compiled binaries are NOT released or distributed by the XboxMediaPlayer team). Do not ask or e-mail us requesting any Xbox files or asking where they can be downloaded from, thanks."
Can anyone comment on when this might no longer be true?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
of comparable specs costs $199. Really, can someone tell me why people are so obsessed about hacking the xbox?
I didn't catch that part of his address, but Miyamoto also pointed out that Nintendo will never go down that road. Nintendo has always been like this, and always will be - no hookers, no drugs, no cop killing. I kind of admire it, really.
. . . that /.'ers who are generally opposed to M$'s monopolistic business tactics rush to buy Xboxes. I know the usual arguments is "M$ loses money for each one sold," but it seems people are actually buying games for their systems too.
I'm guessing you enjoy M$ dominating yet another industry?
The XBOX is a DRM (digital rights management) PC type system, not a standard boot-any-x86-OS PC. Hacking on this hardware is nothing like hacking on standard x86 stuff.
I think you meant to say that hacking the XBOX is a waste of your time. Also, the XBOX won't have a killer app. Apps are traditional applications and the XBOX runs games. As long as MS wants to sell these things cheaper than the cost of manufacture, people will want to buy it to potentially replace low end PCs, can't say I blame them.
I bet MS appreciates your attempt to slow the hacking of the XBOX, however little it may help.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Where are these hacks?
One hack to run Win32 apps on the Xbox console is Wine.
Another is running Microsoft Windows within VMware or the old version of Plex86 (back when it was a VMware replacement and not a clone of User Mode Linux).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sorry, did you say "huge contender", or huge controller? ;)
Ack, kidding moderator! Kidding! I couldn't let this one go!
Why bother? Redmond is just sitting back and watching how everyone breaks or works around the firmware, then updating it again, waiting and watching, updating. They are gathering data to harden Athena/Palladium, for which the XBox is a prototype, and we are playing right into it.
Not to mention that it makes little financial sense. 8GB HD, cheapo Intel processor, old NVidia chipset: I could buy a better box from several sources for little more, and just install Linux on it.
I respect the "because it's there" mentality of getting Linux to run on anything, but it would be a much studlier hack to boot a kernel on the GameCube, for example.
Don't you think Dell would start cranking out cheap, powerful Linux boxes at the first whiff of a MS branded computer?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
Let me paint a picture:
The hacker community as a whole retreats from XBox hacking activities, having intelligently decided that it is not worth violating the DMCA and generally stirring up the currently hostile legislative environment for the sake of running Linux on a substandard PC.
Microsoft relaxes and takes comfort in its apparently unbreakable firmware. Indeed, they settle on something very similar for the future Palladium platform implementation. These evil new PCs start flooding the market, forcing Redmond's ideas of DRM onto many users.
Then, those same hackers begin again in earnest on a much more worthwhile hacking project: stopping Microsoft from turning our own computers against us.
I have a dream.
Not quite as good a deal as your subject; you're paying an additional $63 for the Dell.
Also, looking at Dell's site it appears that the deal is over. The PC is now $499 (no rebate, it's now "$100 Instant Savings"), and only has a "free upgrade" for the hard drive, from 30 GB to 60 GB. barbeque
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Yes it's true. He stated in that article something about locking an Xbox to only play legitimate official games is the next thing to locking a PC down to only run windows. He might have been better off not making an ass out of himself with that one. As anyone can tell you, the PS2 and Gamecube have mechanisms built in that do the exact same thing, it's standard practice in the console world. One more egghead ramming his foot right down his gullet due to being tech-political.
Here's a thought - Since the Xbox is little more than a very specialized Intel based PC, shouldn't it be possible to replicate the entire hardware base? So instead of making an Xbox run Linux, shouldn't we be able to build an x86 machine that runs Xbox games?
.xbe natively on a modded Xbox instead of in Linux.
I suppose the three big things I see as possible problems are the nVidia chip (Is that chip available in a PC based card?), the weird DVD drive, and the strange partitioning the Xbox does. The hard drive should be easy enough to duplicate - EvoX already has the capability to prepare a HD for Xbox use in the actual Xbox. And we've already seen that someone has made a standard DVD player work in an Xbox, so we should be good there.
I currently use my modded Xbox to stream music and videos from my desktop PC as well as to browse the web via GentooX/Mozilla. I think it's great, but would love to have a faster proc and more memory to actually run Linux at a decent speed. Since I use Linux almost solely for browsing on my Xbox, I suppose it would make me happy if someone ported Mozilla over to run as an
Im a business major so this is my train of thought: Why not give the people what they want, market the xbox as a cheap little computer entertainment center.
MAking a few changes to the system cant be much of an effort if every joe smith out there is doing it in their living room. Maybe they could retool the unit or something...I dont really feel like reading up on the literature (if you can call it that) but maybe they could sell an Xbox makeover package (in addition to that stupid DVD remote that you have to pay 30$ for if you want to watch movies) that does the same things all those websites instruct you to do.
Take a disadvantage and turn it in your favor.
If you don't buy anything related to the Xbos MS earns 0, nada, zilch, nil.
/.
If you buy only the Xbox they are recouping 140 or wahtever dollars. Do the maths wise one.
Now, don't be stupid. This argument is the most idiotic one in the history of
If you want to hurt MS don't buy their products. If you want to hurt them even more, don't use their products at all (i.e. don't buy second hand, don't pirate stuff you criminal, drop their stuff as fast as you can).
I try to avoid people with shoddy legal and ethical records when making business. MS is no different on this respect.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You lose your money *and* MS recovers some.
Common people, you are clever guys, what is going on????
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Another Linux use for an X-box... render farms.
I could imagine easily a room full of XBoxes, each of which MS took a loss on, offering low cost and OK performance in either server or render farm or parallel supercomputing.
Yes, I'm saying "imagine a Beowulf cluster of h4xx0rd Xboxes".
Is the optical setup I/O or simply output, and if it's true I/O, can this be used for a cheap optical high-speed LAN?
Why is this a good or bad idea? Are any of these ideas cost-effective? Has anyone tried any of this?
Tech Public Policy stuff
Thanks a lot.
From the CNet article about Microsoft licencing UNIX from SCO we see:
Late Sunday, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said acquiring the license from SCO "is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing.
I guess you can thank SCO for this latest round of name calling from Microsoft.
How is this comparable ? It has no video out, it doesn't have a DVD drive. It has no advanced sound. It's ugly and noisy. It takes ages to boot. They don't even dare to say which graphic adapter it has. It's a shared memory one so I guess it sucks very hard (Yeah I know the XBox too, but Xbox apps take that into account).
No they weren't original titles for the XBox, I never meant to imply that.
However, the point that was being made is that because of the ease in cross platform development, PC games are more likely only to be ported to the XBox or come out on the XBox far in advance of the other console release dates.
XBox game development is one of its strongest features, as most game developers will agree with. Microsoft took great pains in ensuring that the model the XBox uses for development is easy. (Follow the pre-reviews that are still on the Web before the XBox was released and the vast developer support of its game development specifications.)
Game developers can target the PC and quickly move the game to the XBox with little modification. They don't have to do things that are done on other consoles to get the best performance out of the games.
Take the PS2 for example, even with what graphics potential it has, it takes a lot of development and design to get the game to play well by pushing the right bits down the right pipes at the right time. It is a far cry from DirectX based development environment that PC game designers and XBox game designers enjoy.
DirectX does quite well at removing the developer from the tweaking of hardware to achieve game performance, and instead lets the graphics card manufacturers do the driver tweaking to offer the performance to developers. (Hence the big DirectX9 support and benchmarks debate now.)
When OpenGL stopped its progression towards a 3D standard that was conducive to upcoming graphic accelerated games on the PC environment, Microsoft made a radical shift to develop its own technology; hence the creation of DirectX (WinG, etc).
Many people think Microsoft made DirectX to compete with OpenGL, but at the time Microsoft wanted OpenGL to become what it has become and then there wouldn't be the need for DirectX. It was the reluctance of the industry to move OpenGL to a gaming model and create an interface between video hardware acceleration and applications, which in turn forced Microsoft to create the WinG and DirectX layers.
Microsoft pushed the OpenGL standard to move in that direction a long time before they ever had plans to create their own layer (DirectX).
As most know and remember NT supported OpenGL far before DirectX was conceived of, as it was to be the standard for the NT OS for the next generation of video and gaming.
It is just too bad OpenGL didn't move to create that level of complexity and hardware support at the time.
But then again, having two standards, OpenGL and DirectX, that are now somewhat in competition is a good thing. It has pushed DirectX to natively support and even push the limits of the graphic card manufacturers capabilities. (Again, hence the new GeforceFX and ATI9700/9800)
you wrote: "so the only way to make this work legally is to transfer ownership (probably physically) to the modchip seller temporarilly. Or else sell a kit with a blank bios and means to write/patch the bios yourself."
I don't know why that should be true with the Cromwell BIOS, since it contains no MS code and does not allow running of unsigned code. (I'm not presenting that as a final argument -- it's just my understanding that the Cromwell BIOS is completely legal and aboveboard.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I think there is still a room for a home computer ala C64 or an Amiga:
1) an all-include case with a keyboard, video and audio ports, dvd-rom, floppy disk, mouse and keyboard ports
2) a RISC type processor with a clean assembly language; in the range of 500 to 1000 MHz
3) standard graphics and sound hardware; on par with an ATI 8500 / Audigy; 64 MB video ram
4) 256 MB RAM
5) flashable ROM bios with the basics of the operating system so as that boot times are minimized
6) a BASIC-derived language that is compiled/interpreted and includes libraries for everything the machine can do; preferrably object-oriented
7) a suite of programs packaged with it: word processor, spreadsheet, drawing and painting application, sound & music application, the aforementioned BASIC development environment, an internet browser
8) modem slot; takes either 56K or ISDN or other type of modem
9) packaged with one two button mouse and a joypad; the machine would have at least 4 joypad slots
10) packaged with a 20 MB hard disk
11) a very simple unix-like operating system with preemptive multitasking
I think it could cost under 400$, given the right choice of component suppliers. It need not be top-notch, after all. It would be semi-portable, hooked to a telly as well as a monitor.
Personally, I would love such a machine. I could take it everywhere, on every trip, hook it on the telly, play my favorite games, browse the internet, whatever. Have it in the living room, as well as the bedroom. It would not be plugged with driver problems, since the hardware would be standard.
I think that a machine like that would have many targets:
1) the back-bedroom programmers
2) those who grew up on C64/Amiga/Atari ST/Amstrad/Spectrum/MSX and really miss those plug-n-play situations
3) the people that want a cheap computer
4) the people that want to be introduced to computers
5) kids that want to play games, provided some good games are written for it; it would be like a console: stick the CD/DVD in the drive, let the game be played.
6) people that travel a lot and want their machine with them; a had a friend once that carried his Amiga 600 with him in a suitcase when he travelled abroad. Of course they could get a portable PC, but it would not be the same: a portable has a small keyboard not really fit for typing a lot of things (certainly not for developing applications), it can't be hooked to a TV and it costs much more. PCs are not intergrated systems and there are bound to maintenance problems.
For $200,
0 00 08N6XF/qid=1053353915/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-628162 5-7244138?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846
Apex ADR1000 Progressive Scan DVD Player, with 40gb hard disk
* Single-disc progressive-scan DVD player renders seamless images on HD and HD-ready TVs
* 40 GB hard drive stores up to 40 hours of programming (offers time-shifted viewing, timed recording)
* Plays MP3 and WMA CDs, JPEG and Kodak picture CDs
* Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel digital output (for immersive surround sound when used with a compatible AV receiver)
* Includes Apex Full-screen Function for viewing widescreen movies in full-screen on 4:3 TVs
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B
* In the box: DVD player/disk recorder, remote control, user's manual, stereo analog audio interconnect/composite-video cable
* Disc capacity: 1
* Progressive scan: Yes
* Playback formats: DVD-Video (NTSC), red book CD, CD-R, CD-RW, JPEG image CD, Kodak Picture CD, MP3 CD, WMA CD
* Aspect ratio control: Yes
* Dialog enhancer: No
* Integrated receiver: No
* Multi-angle viewing: Yes (with applicable discs)
* Frame advance: Yes
* Still/freeze frame: Yes
* Karaoke: No
* Recording capability: Yes (hard-disk recording only)
* Reverse-frame step: Yes
* Slow motion: Yes
* Text display: No
* VCR capability: No
* Audio outputs: 1 stereo analog (left/right), 2 digital (1 optical, 1 coaxial)
* Headphone jack: No
* Video outputs: 3 (composite-, component-, and S-video)
* Surround-sound output: Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel passthrough
* THX-certified: No
* Channel-block capability: No
* Built-in satellite receiver: No
* Advance programming: Yes
* Games included: None
* Infrared port: No
* Instant messaging: No
* Interactive television: No
* Internet capability: No
* Keyword search: No
* Hard-drive storage capacity: 40 GB
* Maximum recording time: 40 hours
* Monthly fee: None
* Movies on demand: No
* Picture-in-picture (PIP): No
* Program recommendations: No
* Number of programs recorded at once: 1
* Analog phone jack: 1
* USB port: No
* IR blaster: No
* Universal remote included: Yes
* Web-based control: No
* Live TV buffering: Yes
* Onscreen magazine: No
* Pause live TV: Yes
* Warranty: 1 year parts and 90 days labor
LMAO
//e *g*
OK, I don't agree about the Speccy, but I think it's funny. C64 was the leetness box, but I like the Apple
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
This article mentioned something about PC's that only run Windows. I don't think this is a problem. People that want to run Linux usually build their own PC anyway. The common pc users who buy PC's off the shelf only know Windows, so they aren't going to care about Linux. Personally, wheither I run Windows or Linux, I'll only own a PC that I build myself. The real threat comes when us geeks want to run Windows for compatibility reasons and they change Windows to only work on PC's that only work with Windows. That might actually help their competition though because it would force people to use Linux on their home built machines.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Everyone keeps talking about Dell's cheap assed computers. I could hammer together a clone for the same price which would CRUSH any Dell, and when you called me on the phone for tech support and I told you to go F*** yourself, you'd see that my tech support is better than theirs too!
Dell has started using some of the shoddiest parts I've ever seen. Their tech support is terrible; I had a damn harddrive crap out last week, click click click, and they ran me through hoops for almost TWO hours before they'd agree to send me a replacement.
And Dell RAID controllers! #@%^#!$^%^Q#$ BASTARDS! They go down more often than a 5 cent whore! And Dell loses the data EVERY TIME!@!!
For a $350 dell, I'd be REAL suspicious. Crappy onboard graphics and sound stapled to a board stamped out by Crazy Wong's house of cheap hardware in Korea.
Just my opinion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Slashdot is now a forum for discussing ony those things that you think to be socially redeeming? What a pompus ass you must be in the real world. Yup, the standard by which all opensource software projects will be judged against will henceforth be your 'socially redeeming value' litmus test. Thanks for opening our eyes.
If I buy an xbox, I'll do with it what I please. That won't change until they start leasing the game equipment to end users. And just how many would lease an xbox? Not many.
If I use the 007 savegame method, there isn't even any hardware modifying needed to get linux running. For gaming I already have a much better platform. Have you compared playing UT on a playstation2 versus a pc with good keyboard and mouse? The pc wins easily, makes me wonder why people want consoles for playing games...
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Is that really the case they put on those cheap things?
I've sold $20 plastimetal cases that have more upgradability (and style) than that 1990's trash. Blech.
No wonder the things are so cheap. Dell downgrades you from conductive plastimetal to just plain plastic.
Then again, I love working on Dells (and other name brand PCs). I have no qualms about doubling my usual rates. Fact is the consumer shows their willingness to cough up the dough (because it says Dell on the PC) and most of these cheap name-brand PCs have hell-on-earth cases to work with, even today. At least most have gotten rid of the proprietary parts (apart from the motherboard and case).
Yes, I got a lot of repeat business from these customers, so either I give deep discounts already, my service is too good to be true, or I'm right and Dell sells you what you pay for (minus some extra fat corporate profits!)
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore. Karma whoring karma whore.
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FUCK YOU!