These days, we take it for granted that a video game console will have multiple USB ports. There’s even an expectation that basic peripherals such as storage devices will “Just Work” when plugged into the system — a far cry from the days when each system had its own proprietary memory card.
The original Xbox from 2001 actually had USB ports as well, it’s just that they were used for the controllers and had non-standard connectors that kept you from plugging in other devices. But a simple adapter gets you a standard USB-A port, and after that it’s just a matter of software. Like this homebrew project to get generic USB webcams working on Microsoft’s first foray into console gaming.
Well, “generic” may be pushing it a bit, as the project by [Darkone83] currently lists only two compatible cameras. The first is the Xbox Live Vision Camera, which was never intended to be used on the original Xbox and was instead an accessory for Microsoft’s follow-up console, the Xbox 360. Interestingly, the other supported camera happens to be Sony’s PS2 EyeToy. Claiming that you plugged a PS2 camera into your Xbox would have been fighting words back on the playground circa 2003, but now it’s a reality thanks to the power of open source.
Now there technically was a camera for the original Xbox, but it was only released in Japan and is quite rare. Perhaps unsurprisingly it used the same OV519 chipset as the EyeToy and later Vision Camera, and reverse engineering how the console communicated with it was critical to the development of this project.
As of right now, there’s not much practical application for this webcam driver. It just shows the image from the camera on your TV in glorious 320×240 resolution. But now that the code to make it work is out in the wild, hopefully other Xbox homebrew projects will add support for it.
Although things aren’t quite as active these days as they once were, the hacking scene for the original Xbox is the stuff of legend. If you ever see one of this gargantuan consoles at a flea market for cheap, there’s still plenty of fun to be had pushing the system outside of its comfort zone.
“things aren’t quite as active these days as they once were”
We are in the glory days now. There’s never been more modchips, BIOS features, hardware mods, and homebrew apps coming out as there has been for the past few years. Stuff that would have been impossible back in the day. There’s so much going on it’s hard to keep track of it all!
Not wrong. But I mean, the technology was already there.
All the foundation work was done in 80s and 90s before. PC/x86, ARM, RISC chips..
By mid-90s we had mod chips for PS1 based on PIC microcontrollers, for example.
It just wasn’t as conveniant, though, I think.
Instead of using Arduino Unos or Pi Zeros we had used PIC16C84 based circuits, for example.
Which already was somewhat more user-friendly than programming EPROMs in a programmer.
(PICs could be easily, directly programmed via simple serial interface).
In late 90s/esrly 2000s USB was still young, though.
And Linux and other free OSes had weak support for it, still.
Besides that, nothing much happened in the past 25 years from my point of view. Nothing groundbreaking.
Things got faster and smaller, GPUs drew more and more photorealistic graphics, but otherwise it’s same old stuff.
Smartphones haven’t changed for +20 years, for example.
Still look same and do same things. A black pocket mirror. No new OS/architecture, no phantasy.
It’s still Android vs iOS. Except that early versions still looked beautiful.
No PalmOS, Symbian, Blackberry OS or Windows Mobile/Windows Phone anymore.
The evolution went backwards in some ways. Things got boring, bleak.
No more elegant handhelds in the style of Sony Vaio etc.
Retro gaming and retro computing are about the only things that truely seem to make people happy anymore.
I feel like your post went off the tracks and turned into ‘back in my day’ after a little bit. And I think you might’ve got a bit of senility mixed into it too because some of your stuff feels dreamed up.
For example, the tone setter for smartphones was the iPhone that released in 2007, not 20+ years ago.
Sure. That was the whole point here, wasn’t it!? 🤷♂️
Hm, maybe. I hope not, though.
One of my grandparents had dementia, wasn’t fun.
I did what I could to support that grandparent.
After a few years, a bit of me had died inside, too.
The iPhone was previewed as early as 2006, I think.
Or there were rumors in the press at this point, at least.
The official showcase at Apple was later in early 2007, I admit.
But before that, the Handspring Visor with the 2G radio module followed same principle already.
The Handspring Treo 180 from 2001 had similar appearance, but the buttons hid were under a cover.
https://www.pencomputing.com/palm/palmnews/palmnews092500.html
https://pencomputing.com/palm/Pen43/h-treo180.html
There also were other PDAs with built-in cell phone.
T-Mobile MDA, for example. But they were all for civilised used, still and had to be operated using a pen.
That was before users used their bare fingers to operate touch screens.
https://www.teltarif.de/arch/2002/kw29/s8420.html
But that wasn’t really my point here.
It’s rather that since mid-2000s or so there’s not so much diversity anymore.
It was more coloful and playful in the 90s or by turn of century, still.
After that time, PCs got black/silber or all black and ugly.
And mobile devices were getting less and less ergonomic.
When the iPad came out, the final nails were in the coffin, I think.
It ruined society, the web and creativity.
My point is black brick design only really started taking off with the iPhone. I googled 2006 smartphone and got a chat article from that year with a bunch of weird designs. 20+ is just wrong.
The point of the comments was talking about Xbox modding and how we are in a modding golden-age since so many really high quality mods are available. Not talking about tech in general.
That’s also not getting into how rambly your comment was or the validity of some the rest of the points.
Fine, then let’s say its “20” years. Plus a few months, maybe. :)
I know, but console modding existed before. Mod chips were installed in the 90s already. :)
And that wasn’t stone age technology anymore by any means.
All the tools were already available by that time, basically.
By the time XBox came out, I think, modding a console just became more conveniant.
It’s not just since the 2020s that way.
We now have cheap microcontrollers now, sure. ESP32, Arduinos, Pi Zero, Blue Pill, etc pp.
But the know-how we have in 2020s hasn’t suddenly been materiallized out of thin air, whatsoever.
It’s based on the efforts of the past decades, rather.
I know. I’ve went a bit further here, because to me, the XBox was an entertainment system based on custom PC hardware.
At heart, it runs a Windows-like OS with a DirectX derivative on a Pentium 3 hardware.
That’s why I made the mental jump to PCs of the day.
Um, okay. I guess I’m a bit too chatty and sometimes get taken away when writing.. :(
Unfortunately, there’s no edit button available to fix things afterwards.
AI generates article “written” about an AI-generated project. What an embarrassment. Xbox Live Vision camera or 360 have nothing to do with this. They are only AI hallucinations overlooked by the author who made no effort to vet his project. Everywhere “Live Vision” is mentioned, it actually refers to “Xbox Camera” sold exclusively in Japan for Xbox Classic.
“This is chipset-specific OV519-family support, not generic UVC webcam support.”
Where did you get that it said it was a “project to get generic USB webcams working on Microsoft’s first foray into console gaming”?