XBox Chip With Legal BIOS 359
Lours writes "OzXChip, an Australian company, has a new Xbox chip which comes preinstalled with the new (Cromwell Linux BIOS. Previous chips came without (or simplistic) BIOS for obvious legal and hardware-related (HD-key) reasons you had to go through a lot of manipulations in order to install a patched version of the original Microsoft BIOS or ask the vendor to do it which obviously he was not willing to do for free (when he was willing to). Since the new Cromwell BIOS is fully open source it can be shipped with the chip without any legal risks, gaining you a lot of time, sweat and money. Plus the chip has a very useful feature: by using software based on Andy Green's -- one of the maintainers of the XBox Linux project -- Raincoat, it lets you flash a new BIOS very easily: burn the BIOS file onto a blank CD, put it in the Xbox, boot and you are done. With such beasts there is not much left in the way of want-to-be Linux Xbox hackers who might have been affraid until now to have to deal with delicate hardware intricacies or reluctant to run the whole town for a vendor willing to mod their Xbox at the smallest fee. With important linux distributions also incoming (Debian and Mandrake are underway if not completed) it won't be long before everyone can write code for (and on!) the machine only a few minutes after receiving the chip in his mailbox. Hopefully we are going to see a zillion things running on the machine that Microsoft would only have dreamt of making (and selling)." Update: 01/23 16:07 GMT by T : The company's name is actually OzXChip, rather than OzChip (as originally rendered); thanks to reader Michael Muir for pointing this out.
yes but (Score:5, Interesting)
X-Box Killer apps (Score:5, Interesting)
It's too bad MS doesn't jump on the bandwagon. If they produced PVR software and sold it for the price of a normal game, I'd happily buy an X-Box and that software. I'd also pay at least $20 for DivX player software for it.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
XBox Live (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:XBox Live (Score:4, Interesting)
Easy solution: buy a second XBox. No, really. There are a number of used/refurb XBoxes around if you look. The infamous "Disk is Dirty or Damaged" error (DDoDE) made for a lot of replaced XBoxes. If you look around at your local used game shops, I'm sure they have a couple used for a good price (or refurbished for a bit more money). Play XBox Live on your current working XBox, waste your time hacking around with Linux on the refurb.
xbox live? (Score:2, Interesting)
#Disable switch compatibility (XBox Live compatibility)
does this mean we can play on xbox live with modded xboxen?
Check the links (Score:4, Interesting)
It has switch for "X-Box Live" compatibility
Re:X-Box Killer apps (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah! And that killer app Mediaplayer is a MPLAYER + some other open source projects rip off! Read more about on MPlayer's HQ site [mplayerhq.hu]. There's talk about it somewhere on the frontpage. Xbox mediaplayer people shamelessly denied using open source code and DID NOT GIVE ANY CREDIT to whom it belongs. They were also violating GPL by not providing the source code.
Re:Build it, the (apps) will come? (Score:2, Interesting)
Flashing BIOS Easy? MSFT must love this. (Score:4, Interesting)
I can just see it now:
1) Linux hacker goes home with new hotly anticipated Starcraft: Ghost (published by Microsoft), which he stood in line for 10 hours to buy.
2) Linux hacker pops new game into XBox.
3) New UberSafeDisc protection on Starcraft: Ghost flashes replacement BIOS, replaces it with code for original XBox BIOS, then disables future flashing...
Are they still at a loss? (Score:4, Interesting)
But with the depreciation of hardware over time, does it still cost them? Thoughts appreciated. -MMT
Re:The price of the Xbox will rise (Score:1, Interesting)
According to whom?
The only data I've seen in regards to this comes from the same people who also insist that 'omg pretendo is teh sux!!!' and 'haha sonic iz gay!'
Re:Flashing BIOS Easy? MSFT must love this. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, some information: on the Xbox, the motherboard flash containing the BIOS is not writeable by default. You have to take out the motherboard and short out a couple of links with solder before it can be written. So MS cannot trash or update the original BIOS.
Most commercial modchips feature a write protect line which you physically have to switch to allow writes to the mod flash. Even those that don't are externally reprogrammable from a PC printer port. So this is no kind of crisis.
What is more possible to imagine in the future though are new games linked with a new version of the MS libraries which seek out and shit on assets on the HDD that MS don't approve of.
Re:Let me get this straight.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Build it, the (apps) will come? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe people who buy that as a media player want to actually hear the media instead of the CPU/PSU/HDD fan.
Maybe people don't want a monster beige tower in their living room, but just a moderately big black and green box.
Maybe people don't want to pay for 300+ Watt current when 100 Watt will do.
Oh sweet charlie horse on a rocket.... (Score:2, Interesting)
And as for people saying M$ is losing money on every unit sold, what if everyone went out and bought an XBox, just to mod it? You know what would happen? "XBox is now the most popular gaming console in the world, according to an indepenent poll. Game developers everywhere are dropping or delaying support for other systems in order to take advantage of this hot market." Now, how was M$ losing money?
Seems like your doing the old "Yeah, you should have seen the look on his face when I stopped his fist with my head..."
Re:The price of the Xbox will rise (Score:5, Interesting)
No no no! Why do people always believe what they want to belive.
This is an urban myth. MS does *not* lose money on the sale of an XBox. It has lost money *so far* when incorporating all the development costs, but it doesn't lose more money each time someone buys one - it makes a small amount of the already lost/spent money back. The cost of the box easily covers the production cost of the unit and also incorporates a small profit for both MS and the retailer/distributor. Admittedly it probably makes more money out of the games, but buying loads of XBoxen will not send MS off into Chapter 11.
Re:Build it, the (apps) will come? (Score:3, Interesting)
And I think this is exactly one of the points Sony intended when the kit was released. It really takes some 6 months to fully handle all the details of the graphics system. I don't think this is the case with the XBox however. All the graphics are in a single chip with easy-to-use APIs.
And furthermore, if the modded XBoxes will be running something MS would have only dreamt of, then they will be mad because they just lost profits.
Why to hack XBox? (Score:3, Interesting)
So why should people bother? Is it a waste of their time to spend so much effort tinkering on XBox when MS clearly does not want them to?
Of course it isn't. Firstly, no one should ever discourage a geek from playing (attempting to hack or modify hardware or software). It's the single most important aspect of it all: the thrill of seeing what you can do with what you've got. Can I tweak it so it goes a little faster? Can I tweak so it sounds a little clearer? Can I take this fridge and make it act as a firewall?
GEEK-SPOK: Why have you been staring at the internals of that mountain of database code for the past two days? That's not our deptartment.
GEEK-KIRK: [dopey voice] Because it's there.
Of course, that's not the *only* reason to hack. Another is: We Hate Microsoft. And why wouldn't we? They try to lock us out of the software, and their not satisfied with that, now they want to lock us out of the hardware as well. *Naturally* hackers will try to hack it.
And what's so bad about that? I think some of the naysayers hear lack imagination. Think of XBox hacking as a big, community-based R&D project--because it is. Just like all R&D projects, we're not exactly sure what will come out of it. But I, for one, am curious to find out.
Although getting Linux up and running on XBox is still a bit tricksy today, that doesn't necessarily mean it will be difficult tomorrow. This latest innovation means that more hackers will be able to play.
It's conceivable that, at some future point, Linux-on-XBox may be as easy as inserting a CD (after having purchased the appropriate *type* of XBox from the store). Once the hardware is openned up, anything is possible. Myself, I'm looking forward to the prosepct of a "MAME distribution" for "Linux On XBox". Of course, you'd have to download all the romsets from somewhere else.
I know people have managed to get MAME up and running on XBox already, but that's what I'm getting at--as I understand it, it's still a bit involved right now. But as all this XBox hacking moves forward, it may one day be simple enough for everybody--or at least simple enough for the average geek.
Most important reason to hack the XBox: if the xboxhackers don't hack it to figure out how it works and let the masses know, who will?
P.S. I obviously wrote this strange, long post all at once w/o any proofing or anything. If the ideas or grammar offend anyone, all I can say is: oops, my bad.
Re:Are they still at a loss? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now he wasn't specific as to whether Microsoft is amortizing the cost of development into the price of production of the units in order to have a year end loss, and thereby claim a tax refund (wow that was a long sentence
Now I have to get back to playing Splinter Cell
Re:yes but (Score:3, Interesting)
But really, I can't imagine buying an X-Box to play games.
It's a fraction of the machine my laptop is. As a
PVR or a webserver it makes perfect sense, however.
Re:Build it, the (apps) will come? (Score:3, Interesting)
that I have 4 dedicated X-Boxes in my closet and one behind
my TV.
Re:Check the links (Score:2, Interesting)
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
The guy should be careful. The Microsoft FrontPage 2000 license forbids [onlisareinsradar.com] you from disparaging Microsoft, MSN, Expedia, [blah, blah, blah] or any of their products or services. Don't want to get secretly arrested at midnight or anything like that.
I believe this was covered on Slashdot previously, and other places as well, but I have not yet fully mastered the sophisticated skills necessary to use Google. And I'm lazy.
Microsoft, people! (Score:2, Interesting)
People, Microsoft loves it when you tweak their box this way. Publically, they're against it, but you're helping their bottom line, and as long as your tweaks are unofficial, they're marginal enough to be ignored. In fact, even if microsoft itself sold the modchip, it'd still be helping their bottom line to purchase it.
Do you think they care what weird software you put on their box? No. What they care about is their sales numbers, which is the only way your tweak impacts them. Their sales numbers, when high enough, mean more titles for xbox (and less for cooler platforms). Their sales numbers mean microsoft proprietary hardware, which will probably eventually run windows.
Imagine, microsoft with a wholly controlled (no, your silly modchip doesn't matter to them, it's still wholly controlled) hardware platform, to match their wholly controlled OS. It's a dream come true for their stock holders, and a very bad thing for FOSS, and a very bad thing for competition in the console market - because you can bet that if they get more than a toe hold on that market, they're going to run with it and never let another competitor see the light of day ever again.
So please, if you love high prices and lack of software freedom, keep snapping up those xboxes! Tweak to your heart's delight! Microsoft will be your friend (at least until they can make a buck by selling your soul)!