[Odin84gk] always wanted a remote control for his PC. He didn’t want to spend a lot of money to get a good one or waste money on a cheapy. He decided to go with something he already had: an Xbox DVD kit. He built an adapter cable for the Xbox receiver using instructions on redcl0ud’s site. Using the standard setup the remote driver just spits out key combos, but to make the remote truly flexible he combined it with AutoHotKey. AutoHotKey catches the key sequences and can execute complex scripts based on them.

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Inventgeek has just posted their latest project: an industrial strength dance pad. It’s built out of 14GA 1″ steel tubing and acrylic. I brains are from a generic set of DDR pads. There is also a separate lighting system. The pad was built it for an Xbox, but they’ve got a USB adapter for use with Stepmania as well. Although the construction looks really solid, [jared] is careful to mention that this is just the first prototype. It definitely looks better than anything you could buy or find in the arcade.

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Monday brought news of backups successfully booting on Xbox 360s with modified DVD firmware images. LittleJonny put together a tutorial on how to boot two different DVD drive firmwares. To perform this mod you need a second SST 39sf020a flashrom plus some resistors. The two flash chips are soldered directly on top of each other except for pin 15. Two wires are then attached. Which flash chip is used depends on which wire you pull to ground. Just add a switch and you can install a modified firmware on the second chip while keeping your original. I’m guessing Microsoft will put firmware detection into the dashboard to combat this, but this will keep your original firmware intact so you won’t have to reflash if something breaks.

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Backups can now be booted on the Xbox 360 according to Xbox-scene. The firmware was released by Commodore4Eva who previously released a functional Xbox 1 firmware. It works under the same idea as the final Xbox hack: it patches the response to the media check into the DVD drive’s firmware. So the drive responds with an all-clear without even checking the DVD. This hack works on units with the Toshiba-Samsung drive. The new firmware also lets you use the drive under Windows for easy game ripping. There are some quirks to it, but it sounds like everything you need is included. It’s unfortunate that this happened before they were able to get executable code running on the machine. Now that the bootleggers have what they want I’m afraid it might take some steam out of the homebrew movement.

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One of the most amazing things about the Xbox 360 isn’t the graphics or the high price; it’s how much heat the thing puts out. Hot air pours out of the machine and I’ve often considered turning mine into and Easy-Bake convection oven. People have been modifying the boxes since their initial release and xboxexpert, on xbox-scene, decided to put together a guide to help out anyone seeking to watercool their Xbox 360. From the text it sounds like he didn’t even play the thing once he got it from the store, the first thing he did was pull it apart. His setup uses Coolance GPU water blocks and a Thermaltake cooling system powered from the DVD drive 12V line.

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It looks like backup copies of games can now be booted on the Xbox 360. Maxconsole has the video. This hack is similar to the final firmware hack of the original Xbox. The response to the challenge code is written directly in the firmware. So instead of checking the disc, the firmware responds to the challenge directly. Here are the technical details. This hack doesn’t allow you to run unsigned code or ignore region codes. All it lets you do is play direct one-to-one copies of game discs.

Related: Xbox 360 Hacks, Xbox Hacks

The official Xbox 360 hard drive connector combines a SATA connector and a power connector into one plug. Even though it is proprietary, some clever hackers have found a really easy way to interface with it. Since it is slot based you can just etch contact pads onto a circuit board and plug it in. The hard drive inside uses standard connectors, but this adapter will keep you from opening the case, voiding your warranty. It will also be much quicker to use daily. You can use Xplorer360 to get full read/write access to the drive. They’re selling the adapter in kit form for $17 and assembled for $20, but the high res pics show how easy this is if you just want to build it yourself.

[via xbox-scene]

Related: Xbox 360 Hacks, Xbox Hacks