JuiceBox Custom Linux Cart

rom cart

The JuiceBox is a personal video player that was sold by Mattel that no one cared about. It was capable of playing MP3s off of an SD card and this summer you could pick them up for cheap as retailers dumped their stocks. [prpplague] has been hard at work creating a custom bootable rom cartridge. The MP3 adapter is a simple pc board with a SD card holder attached to it. The card is modified so the JuiceBox believes it is a video cartridge. An xD memory card is then soldered onto the back to act as storage. Using the JTAG connection on the JuiceBox and a serial console you can flash the bootrom, kernel, and ram disk from the SD card onto the xD. Once flashed the new custom cartridge will work on any JuiceBox. [prpplague] is still cleaning up the flash code, but it should be ready to go shortly.

24 thoughts on “JuiceBox Custom Linux Cart

  1. i cared about the juicebox… just not as much as the zipit, which is still a little too pricey fir me,when the zipits are say $50, i will buy several. (//i chat alot more than watching low res videos)

  2. Sorry to be off topic but I was trying to find a website where you can decode the barcode thing on the front of a drivers license by scanning it and running a program to find the information sotred in there. I don’t remember if it was ever on HAD or not and I tried searching google, but I am not too sure what to look for. All I found where card swipers and such. I’m not looking to decode the mag-strip, but the bar code on the front just out of curiosity.

  3. I’ve been looking for a JuiceBox everywhere. The only place I actually saw one was at a Toys-R-Us in Madison, WI. It was also 50 bucks. I saw that someone got their box for like 15, so I said screw it.

    I’m not paying $50 for something I’m gonna bust(more than likely) anyways.

  4. I saw a stack of these things at a Salvation Army for 25 dollars each. Check out your local thrift shops, it looks like companies have started dumping their stocks for a tax writeoff.

  5. They sell it at KB Toys for 24.99. It includes a juice box medica player, MP3 Starter Kit with card reader, USB cable, 32-MB card, CD-ROM software & flash card adapter, stereo headphones, carrying case and 3 media clips.

  6. I picked up one on Saturday. They still had stacks and stacks of them. They will probably be available for the sale price until they sell out. I imagine there is considerable apathy toward the whole product line, which will result in quite a bumper crop of spare units. Hopefully, they will go for $5 after Christmas. It’s worth it for the SD/MMC reader, USB extension, and spare 32MB SD card. The one I bought for test works quite well for mp3 play.

  7. STILL waiting on that Linux coding, any luck? This is the closest I’ve come to finding a programable cart for the Juicebox and I’m tired of having to use the Juicebox software… I know the Juicebox is capable of playing videos, just waiting….

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