Windows CE.NET Ported to Xbox

Cutriss writes "Caught this over at Xbox Scene - Windows CE.NET 4.2 has been ported to the Xbox. Artifex, one of the developers of this project, says the following about the status of development: 'The basic kernel subsystem is in place. The IoCtl is about 90% done. ISR/IST is up and working. PCI enumeration happens properly. USB initializes and enumerates devices (but hangs if there's a gamepad connected). Mouse driver loads. Keyboard driver loads but is missing a layout, so it's not quite functional yet. A VERY simple video driver is in place (Software mouse cursor seems to be failing, so you won't see a pointer, yet).' It's a 100% legal distribution, but you'll still need a modded/exploited Xbox in order to run it. Screenshots hosted by Xbox Scene can be found here(1) and here(2)."

Comments

This is awesome!

[Dr Reducto]

I read what the guy who did this said, and at theend, he says that with this out of the way, we are a few steps closer to getting Windows XP and such ported over. The guy does need help getting together some people who know Windows drivers and such to help him and is considering making this a sourceforge project.

Re:Why?

[RevAaron]

I was a Linux and OpenStep guy, still am, though I use more OS X than OpenStep these days. But my primary computer at home is a Windows CE machine. Why? Sound insane? Nah, well, maybe a little.

CE is very much a "real OS," though certainly with some limitations. It is tiny and fast. Apps for it tend to be the same. I've found it to be stable, more so than even the Linux PDAs I've owned and used. In a 32 MB ROM, I've got the OS, Office, a pretty darn modern version of IE, and more. In 128 MB of my SD card, I've got a bunch of Unix apps (including perl, LaTeX, wget, ftp, ssh, python, many others), my whole development environment for my chosen language- Squeak Smalltalk, Emacs for CE, VNC, and other apps. I've got a tabbed web browser that simply embeds IE and is a whopping 40 kb.

Re:Why?

[mabhatter654]

sounds cool and useful...MS may even grudgingly "approve" of such a measure. Also, CE is much more condusive to the Xbox format... very many Ipaq and other apps would fit quite nicely on an Xbox memory card...or even USB doggle! A touch more work and the xbox would make a great "home station" for net access and email for busy people who don't really want to keep or manage a PC.

That said, I suspect that Sony will be the first to actually endorse such a model with PS3...although PS2 is more than adequate right now...just share data from Clie's using mem sticks and USB...but you'd need some phone/palm softare to pull it off...on the other hand if sony could strike a deal to use PalmOS as a "stand alone" HD option on PS2 they could have it RIGHT NOW...and run palm apps to boot!

And of course we have Apple with iPodOS (???) and OSX. And Linux with Zarus. Nokia just needs to find a friend for Symian phone OS (nintendo? + panasonic? we can wish) and we might finally get true appliance-like functionality from our electronic devices!

PC manufactures have had 20 years to make it work right...time to give real appliance makers a shot at it?

Re:Why?

[treke]

Nope, he isn't a troll, just a bit unusual. He uses PDAs as his primary computers for programming, web browsing, and the other apps most of us use desktops for.

Oh and Rev... RELEASE!

Re:I can see the comments now...

[Tim C]

Round here, we call that a "programmer's 90%" - meaning that it mostly works, perhaps lacks one or two required features, has barely been tested (if at all), still needs to be integrated with the front-end, have error checking added, be documented/commented, etc.

The 10% remaining is the boring, tidying up and finishing off stuff that takes 90% of the time...