XBMC (formerly Xbox Media Center) has always been a popular choice for retiring an original Xbox. Maybe people install it for lack of something better to do or maybe it’s the pride in having better media support than the 360. The XBMC team has found another device that has a pretty weak television experience, the Mac. Lifehacker took the latest XBMC for OSX beta build for a run now that it supports remote controls. It seems like a much more functional than Apple’s built in Front Row. There are a few things that don’t quite work yet, which you can find in the FAQ. We’re definitely going to try this on our old Mac mini… once we upgrade it to Leopard, which is an unfortunate caveat that might prevent people from running XBMC on legacy hardware. There is no Apple TV support planned because of limited horsepower and the hacking hurdles that might be required. If you’re interested in repurposing your old Xbox with XBMC, check out Lifehacker’s install guide.
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Modchip Your XBox 360 Controller
[CyberPyrot] and [l0rdnic0] released their spitfire mod on acidmods for XBox 360 controllers. It involves some fine wiring, but a relatively low parts count. The heart of the mod is a PIC16F84A, a crystal for the clock and a few passive parts. It took me a little while to find it, but the code for the pic hiding under the parts list. For a lengthy demo of the mod in action, you can check out this video.
Related: Xbox 360 Hacks, Xbox Hacks
One Handed Xbox Controller
I’m going to have to poke Ben to tell me about these things when he finishes them. He’s released his one handed xbox controller. This one was built by request of a veteran of Iraq. He re-designed the layout and re-positioned the entire right half of the controls to make the controls available to a one handed user.
How do you get a SUMO bean bag, an iPod, and some sweet hardware to hack on? Submit a design to the Hack-A-Day Design Challenge. You’ve got 22 days to submit your design!
Xbox 360 First Impressions
I feel the need to include a disclaimer before getting into this: I don’t own an original Xbox, I own a Playstation 2, I consider myself a casual gamer, I’m a fan of Open Source and not Microsoft.
I purchased this box on the first day because early versions of consoles are generally easier to modify. With the PSP ver. 1.0 it was easy to run homebrew code, but with each successive firmware version, Sony makes it harder. The original Xboxes that are being sold now make it almost impossible to run Xbox Linux because of a hardware change.
Before we get to my experiences, here are some links that you might find interesting.
- Chipworks de-capps and photographs Xbox silicon. Chipworks is a leading silicon reverse engineering company. [via bunnie, who still needs a 360]
- Anandtech’s photo tour of the 360 internals, one and two
- batlogic’s VGA cable pinout and article on the original Xbox’s security model
- Free60.org, the Xbox 360 Linux project
