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I Used Stolen Software to Make a DIY Xbox

TannerMcCoolman

A glimpse into the past of Xbox game development with the Xbox Alpha I development kit. The craziest part? You can build one yourself! (sort of) AND IT CAN EVEN PLAY GAMES (maybe). Oh, and we mistake CES 2001 for E3 2001, but really, who hasn't made that mistake before?

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Curious how Linus, connoisseur of the ethical implications of piracy of his own content, would feel about users uploading Floatplane exclusive content to archive.org.

 

@LinusTech Is it okay if we upload/download your paywalled content as long as it's to/from archive.org? Does that specific site make piracy okay in your view? Or is said piracy only okay when you're in a position to leverage the LTT YouTube channel to profit from it?

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after a certain amount of time, piracy can hold value. either as backup or to preserve some history. As seen with the big N, how they have benefitted from archived/preserved data. If you do it, just to go around paid content that has no form of DRM or attacking the consumer? why should you?

 

Also nice to see one be able to enjoy some old game demos, on experimental hardware. do wonder if youtube still or did support multi-cam view, if doing screen recording instead of awkward zooms on blurry screen?

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Hey, I used to work on these, I have an Alpha I and Alpha II along with the raptor card and I think I still have the documentation for the v1 to v2 upgrade process. The one special trick with these alpha kits is that the GPU is running an engineering bios and the kernel checks for that on boot (unless you either patch the OS before you install it, or you can flash the engineering bios onto a retail card).

 

For the Alpha I, there should have been a sound card that would have been replaced in the v2 upgrade. The reversed floppy drive was in case you bricked the PC when you upgraded the XDK. There were emergency recovery floppies you could boot off of and get the network stack back up and running to reflash the XDK again. If you want to see something cool, go back to one of the earliest xbox boot animations, instead of the green blob that was on the final retail consoles, there was a fireworks display.

 

I also have the Xbox 360 Alpha kit that runs on a PowerMac G5 (yep, a microsoft branded mac) if LTT ever wants to borrow it 😉

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4 hours ago, TannerMcCoolman said:

A glimpse into the past of Xbox game development with the Xbox Alpha I development kit. The craziest part? You can build one yourself! (sort of) AND IT CAN EVEN PLAY GAMES (maybe). Oh, and we mistake CES 2001 for E3 2001, but really, who hasn't made that mistake before?

Linus hair is growing large again maybe Dennis could do a little bit of "magic".

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Does anyone know how legit the rings made by the sponsor are? 
I'm sure they vet any sponsors they have, those rings just sounded too cool to be true

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27 minutes ago, ProgrammingAce said:

The one special trick with these alpha kits is that the GPU is running an engineering bios and the kernel checks for that on boot (unless you either patch the OS before you install it, or you can flash the engineering bios onto a retail card).

Actually modders found out that a normal GPU works fine as long as it uses an NV2 Chip. 

 

What I really would like to see is if it possible to mod an G5 Mac to an 360 Alpha 😄

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7 minutes ago, Captain_Bunghole said:

Does anyone know how legit the rings made by the sponsor are? 
I'm sure they vet any sponsors they have, those rings just sounded too cool to be true

some of the claims sounded fake, but if they are fine in quality and nobody has issues with it?

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Just now, Quackers101 said:

some of the claims sounded fake, but if they are fine in quality and nobody has issues with it?

Yeah I feel like the meteorite/dinosaur bone claims are a little wild. Perhaps they're made of an alloy/a little piece of the rare stuff 😛 

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3 hours ago, Roswell said:

Curious how Linus, connoisseur of the ethical implications of piracy of his own content, would feel about users uploading Floatplane exclusive content to archive.org.

 

@LinusTech Is it okay if we upload/download your paywalled content as long as it's to/from archive.org? Does that specific site make piracy okay in your view? Or is said piracy only okay when you're in a position to leverage the LTT YouTube channel to profit from it?

I did flag this video as condoning/sponsoring piracy. Somehow I doubt they will take it down 😉

NOTE: I no longer frequent this site. If you really need help, PM/DM me and my e.mail will alert me. 

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6 hours ago, Roswell said:

Curious how Linus, connoisseur of the ethical implications of piracy of his own content, would feel about users uploading Floatplane exclusive content to archive.org.

 

@LinusTech Is it okay if we upload/download your paywalled content as long as it's to/from archive.org? Does that specific site make piracy okay in your view? Or is said piracy only okay when you're in a position to leverage the LTT YouTube channel to profit from it?

Linus has said piracy is your business and he's not the moral compass you should live your life on. But ignoring that I think even Linus wouldn't really care if you put up exclusive Floatplane content somewhere 20 years later. 

 

While there is no arbitrary number, if things will be lost to history then archive.org has a place. Also, where money is still actively being charged or it's otherwise available for purchase vs unavailable anywhere else it's obvious that there is a difference.

 

Yes this is still technically 'piracy' but let's be real, there is a very big difference 

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3 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

I did flag this video as condoning/sponsoring piracy. Somehow I doubt they will take it down 😉

Damn, calm down. You act like this will affect someone somewhere. So cringe lol

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10 minutes ago, sarge88 said:

Damn, calm down. You act like this will affect someone somewhere. So cringe lol

He sounds fun at parties.

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1 hour ago, sarge88 said:

Damn, calm down. You act like this will affect someone somewhere. So cringe lol

Did you miss the winky emoji? I was kidding

NOTE: I no longer frequent this site. If you really need help, PM/DM me and my e.mail will alert me. 

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3 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

Did you miss the winky emoji? I was kidding

That winky emoji is very small on my screen to be fair lol

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this dev kit.

has no built in drm.

xbox one and up have a interesting way of drm dev kits.

if staff wants to know pm me.

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Get you soundcard from https://dirtypcbs.com/store/designer/details/7953/6510/wm9701-zip
or
recreate it yourself https://github.com/CodeAsm/AlphaSound/blob/main/Documents/WM9707AMR.pdf (No no completed KiCad/eagle files from me, only the pdf)
Please, if you do, like N64Freak, share your KiCad/Eagle files or atleas the gerber files. I planned to do so, but N64Freak was ahead of me, and started selling his. And then offered the top option with dirtypcb (and not sharing the gerber files 😐 and he doesnt really like the scene anymore. which I understand)


If you like to know more, or need help diagnosing yours join the Xbox discords im probably in (and way more knowledgeable people are there) or check https://xboxdevwiki.net/Development_Kits#Franken_Alpha (ive tried making mistakes and documenting how to fix.)
A PC with a serialport to WinDebug the Xbox alpha would really help you diagnosing your franken alpha.
You dont need the audio card for the main dashboard to boot. Games, they may, need the audio card.
The USB card isnt needed to boot the recovery iso, but you cannot press any controller buttons. but handy if you have only the Mobo, ram, cpu and videocard.

The BOM for the audio card is this I think, (the bracket isnt really needed):

7   0.1uF           1608    C15, C27, C32, C40, C43, C45, C50   
1   0.33uF          1608    C51
2   2.2uF           1608    C28, C35
5   10uF            1608    C6, C38, C49, C52, C53
2   22pF            1608    C33, C34
2   220pF           	1608    C30, C37
1   0R                  2012    L2          
2   49R9            	1608    R32, R57
2   220R            	1608    R33, R36
2   47K               	1608    R34, R37
1   10K                  1608    R45
1   WM9703          	TQFP    U1      
1   MC78L05ACD           U3 
1   NC7SZ66             SOT23-5 U4      
1   24.576MHz       	X1  
1   3.5mm Jack      	J9
1   3 pin header        J15   

1608 is Imperial,
or 0805 Metric.

I would hope you donate money to Borman18, from PtoPOnline and the museum he now works https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/author/andrew-borman/

Why? well, he gotten some of these prototype games, and after a donation run (I donated too) he shared them. And made wonderfull handy pictures for us to deduce what to do or how to make these franken alphas to work. I would especially love it, when you find some donation fundraiser for a prototype game to be released and chim in. cause thats what I do aswell, and its how I got my recovery disk for my franken alpha. lets release these babies and also maybe help former devs get some money for their old work (some of them sell their old stuff).

I know, long text. Thanks linus for the awesome video. altho I kinda disagree on the powerfullness of the PC, remember the date it got made? AAnyway, great video, and YES, for sure MS learned tons about security, DRM and hackers thanks to this early xbox. Remmeber folks, anything on the OG xbox runs in Ring0, 1 exploit, no jail to escape, your already root XD
Grab this free XBox hacking book by Bunnie Huang, THE early xbox hacker https://nostarch.com/xboxfree

Ok im done infodumping for now. have a wonderful day.

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19 hours ago, ProgrammingAce said:

Hey, I used to work on these, I have an Alpha I and Alpha II along with the raptor card and I think I still have the documentation for the v1 to v2 upgrade process. The one special trick with these alpha kits is that the GPU is running an engineering bios and the kernel checks for that on boot (unless you either patch the OS before you install it, or you can flash the engineering bios onto a retail card).

 

For the Alpha I, there should have been a sound card that would have been replaced in the v2 upgrade. The reversed floppy drive was in case you bricked the PC when you upgraded the XDK. There were emergency recovery floppies you could boot off of and get the network stack back up and running to reflash the XDK again. If you want to see something cool, go back to one of the earliest xbox boot animations, instead of the green blob that was on the final retail consoles, there was a fireworks display.

 

I also have the Xbox 360 Alpha kit that runs on a PowerMac G5 (yep, a microsoft branded mac) if LTT ever wants to borrow it 😉

The boot splash from your Alpha can still be seen I think. put a original xbox gamedisk in a dvd player or pc and the animation shown there was the original intended bootsplash by the designer. the xbox sparkly swipe ends and then a message pops up. (newer games might just show the message)

some pictures of early design docs here: https://setonkim.com/xboxdashboard

maybe you reconize?


And that Powermac is so cool, with the right Powermac, you can perfectly recreate the alphakit 😄 Im going to flash my ATI FireGL X3-256 with a XT800 firmware for mac, to just recreate an Alpha Xenon 360 😛 (@TannerMcCoolman new video idea? )

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I think they missed a golden opportunity to put XBMC on this unit.

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2 hours ago, LapsedMemory said:

I think they missed a golden opportunity to put XBMC on this unit.

would have been funny, sadly they would have to port xbmc to a even more dificult to get SDK. I know its a funny joke, but ive actually seen it asked before.
For the Alpha kits, I think 2 SDK versions where "leaked"? non of the "retail" SDK can compile (normally) for the Alpha, so you need to backport any lib, any code and hope any of the multimedia stuff would function under Alpha code.

Or.... get the PC build of XBMC (what now is called Kodi) on the windows 2000 (or XP, xp works on the VC820 aswell).
small problem youll run into with trying any retail games besides the alpha hardware not doing any region checks, the executable is slightly a different format, a bit more like regual windows EXE then Xbox XBE.

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