Posted Apr 21st 2008 8:37PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: home entertainment hacks, peripherals hacks, xbox hacks
[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.
Posted Feb 1st 2008 11:29PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks, xbox hacks
[] sent in
this voice controlled video game project. The idea is simple and honorable: make gaming accessible to the physically limited. [Cyberpyrot] used a voice recognition kit and interfaced it with a bog standard XBox 360 controller. Looks like a fairly easy project if you're familiar with the pointy end of a soldering iron.
Posted Sep 30th 2007 4:17PM by Fabienne Serriere
Filed under: misc hacks, peripherals hacks, xbox hacks
If you are curious about reading all the bits on a DVD, [tmbinc] has
devised a hardware hack that uses a Pioneer DVD drive with leads soldered onto it and a Cypress FX2 microcontroller board to grab the flow of bits and push them over USB2.0. My favorite part of this tutorial is when you slow the spinning DVD down very slightly with your finger with a scope hooked up over what you believe to be the raw data stream from the disk. If the data rate slows when you physically slow down the disk, you probably are grabbing data from the correct pin. [tmbinc] even put together a software tool to process the resulting raw DVD data.
Posted Sep 22nd 2007 11:40PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: xbox hacks
[Xantium] let me know about the latest from the XBox Scene. The attack that was just a
proof of concept is now a fully released hack. [Robinsod] released
details on how to perform the 'Timing Attack' in order to downgrade the 360s kernel to a hackable version. The hack requires an infectus mod chip, a
PIC interface built around a 16F876A and a software package to get things rolling. The big deal is that you can now downgrade your 360 from any kernel to an exploitable version. Considering the previous limitations, this is pretty exciting news for the homebrew crowd.
Posted Aug 25th 2007 11:35PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: xbox hacks
[Paul] let me know about a
new way to get a hacked kernel on a XBox 360. A new timing attack will soon allow you to install an older kernel
with without having the CPU key which was the catch 22 situation before. The proof of concept ressurected a bricked XBox by doing some interesting things to one of the NAND (memory) blocks on the machine.
Great news for the homebrew/hacking scene!
Posted Aug 7th 2007 9:55PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: wii hacks, xbox hacks
[UberNoober147] and [Carey] both sent in
this round about hack. The Wiimote is interfaced with a PC. The PC outputs to a micro-controller circuit that outputs PlayStation 2 control signals. That's connected to a XFPS - a PS2 to XBox 360 controller converter. It's definitely round about, but it works.
Posted Aug 3rd 2007 4:08AM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: xbox hacks, news
I got quite a few emails about this, but didn't have a chance to check it out until now. It seems that the feds have been raiding various mod shops and individuals who've been doing mods for others. I'm a fan of open, moddable and repairable hardware, so this is sad news to me. There's a
first hand account from one of the raided individuals along with a
decent commentary on the issue sent in by [xantium].
This might sound a bit strange, but take the time to let your congress critter know what you think about this issue. Don't expect them to understand the technical background, but letting them know that you're unhappy with the execution of the DMCA and that labeling legitimate uses for mod-chip technology as illegal is the equivalent to outlawing home car repair might make a difference.
Posted Jul 20th 2007 5:56PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: xbox hacks
[XanTium] sent this in a few days ago, but I thought you guys would dig it. Here are the details straight from his email:
Hackers on the XBH forums managed to change DVD key and Game Region Code in the Xbox 360 'Key Vault' (that stores on flashchip: console certificate(s), per-box private keys, DVD key, however NOT any code-related encryption keys).
However you should know the 'Key Vault' is encrypted with the per-xbox360 'CPU key', so that means this
hack is only possible on Hypervisor exploitable Xbox360s (kernel 4532 and 4548) for now. You will of course also have to read/flash the Xbox360 flashchip (by desoldering it and read/flash it with programmer or for example use the versatile Infectus dev chip)
You can read up on some more details
here or get a login and check out the
actual forum thread. The end result: play EU games on your US 360. (It doesn't sound like the DVD movie region has been successfully changed, but modded DVD players are easy to make.)
Posted Jul 6th 2007 12:25PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: xbox hacks
Arcade joystick retrofits aren't usually that interesting. This
one sent in by [Jock] caught my eye for one reason - using those cheap RadioShack reed switch relays to adapt the joystick output to the 360 controllers Dpad. Personally, I think I would have thrown some opto-isolators at it - but the one's that RS (sometimes) has are pretty crappy.
Posted Jun 24th 2007 11:05PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: playstation hacks, xbox hacks
We got news of a pair of interesting gaming hacks today. [XanTium] let us know the
latest on XBox 360 kernel hacking. It's a little catch-22, but if you have the cpu id on your 360, you can downgrade your kernel even if it's been updated. (But, you need to have the old kernel already if you want to retrieve it.)
The boys over at
engadget just put this up a little while ago. Thanks to [Noobz] and [Archaemic], it's now
possible to run homebrew on any firmware version of your PSP - but you'll need a copy of the game Lumines.
Posted May 22nd 2007 3:25PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: laptops hacks, xbox hacks
[Ben] finally got
part 3 of his XBox 360 laptop how-to finished up. This is the final piece of the series. He spends it covering wiring up the ports, buttons, keyboard and final assembly. There are plenty of shops that handle special order laser cutting - so don't begin to think that this sort of project is out of your class. If you've ever built a model car and can handle a soldering iron, you can definitely build one of these on your own.
I was just checking for this final piece this morning - but props to [Tony] for noticing it first.
Posted Apr 27th 2007 11:10AM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: xbox hacks
Dammit. I'm not perfect, but I'm annoyed that despite checking for it, I missed it when
part 2 of Ben Heck's XBox 360 Laptop how-to went up. In this round there's plenty of parts modding to do. From heat sinks to caps, you've got to make them all smaller.
Posted Apr 18th 2007 11:52PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: laptops hacks, misc hacks, xbox hacks
Sure, maybe you're sick of hearing about [Ben]'s
work, but he's finally giving up the goods on building that Xbox 360 laptop. It's not your average slap it in a case and splinch on a screen project, so you'll just have to deal with a few more posts as he pumps out this series.
To console you people who can't stand the major pc board redecorating that's [Ben]'s trademark, [kiwisaft] sent along
this unique use for the ol' laser toner transfer trick.
The
ball point pin dot matrix printer reminded [Tesladownunder] was reminded of
this funky servo based plotteroriginally built for the dearly departed vic20.
Posted Apr 17th 2007 6:33PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: home entertainment hacks, laptops hacks, xbox hacks
I've known this was coming for a while. [
Ben]'s been working hard on
this for a while. He's built his second Xbox 360 laptop. But this time he's putting up a three part How-To series on building it for
engadget. Here's a nice gallery of
hi-res project pics. As usual, I'll let you know when they're posted. Aside from the new color scheme, this one features six fans instead of water cooling - so it should be easier for the how-to reader to construct their own.
Posted Apr 16th 2007 3:21PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: xbox hacks
This is not the most difficult mod ever, but digg loved it enough to kill
Ben's site before I could post it yesterday. Ben's been doing a slate of consignment mods lately. This time he stuffed the guts of a PS3 six axis controller into an Xbox 360 controller body. Ben's starting to act like a XBox 360 borg... His site is back up for now, but it's awaiting some dns updates as it moves to a sexier hosting plan. Look while you can.
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