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Comment by filmgirlcw | Hacker News Reader

XMP was the first time I ever picked up a soldering iron -- so I could "hack" my OG Xbox 1.0.

I will always, always love and respect it. I love that they are still committed to the OG device. I want to pull mine out and see if the spinning hard drive still works after all these years, might even try to update it!

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If you do go ahead and fire up your old Xbox, it would probably be worth you running XCAT.

> Xbox Content Archive Tool (XCAT) is a utility that runs directly on an Xbox console to assist in finding unarchived DLC and other lost content. When run, the application will scan the Xbox hard drive for any content that has yet to be archived and upload it directly to the servers of the XCAT Team for later analysis, sorting, and archival.

https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:XCAT

Precarious hard drive IDE cable-swap-while-running gang here. Sitting there wondering if I was going to kill something with both the family PC splayed open on the dining room table and the Xbox splayed open on the dining room table, with a Linux live CD in hand…

I still can’t believe Bert would have ever cheated on Ernie[1].

[1] http://archiv.sega-dc.de/phoenix.maxconsole.net/docs/bertern...

In the context of how that hack works, I'd argue that Bert and Ernie are working together to tag team the Xbox dashboard. Rather than cheating, seems broadly consensual to me, at least as far as Bert & Ernie are concerned.

People with the skills to design these things impress the hell out of me. The ability to reverse it to then understand it well enough to create these exploits are impressive.

Also, I hate fonts. My two least favorite parts of using computers are fonts and printers. Even in the old days of System 7-9 pre-OS X, fonts would prevent a system from booting. Many a times, I had to reboot without loading extensions, move out fonts, and then reboot because some font I just "borrowed" was corrupt. Even then, I was flabbergasted that a font could crash a computer. The more things change, the more they stay the same it appears.

That link just unlocked a core memory I haven't thought about since I was 17 years old, so thanks for that!

Yep my electronics engineer dad was like "you cannot do this" but it worked! He got me to put an aligator clip wire from case to case so the grounding would at least be joined?

Same. Executer mod chip?

I remember at its peak renting 5 games at a time from blockbuster, copying them to my Xbox in the parking lot and dropping the DvDs in the return box to confused employees inside who had just rung me up.

Dont think I played many of the games the real game was building the collection haha fond memories

That's what my dad used to mod our OG Xbox. My neighbor (unmodded) and I would split the Blockbuster Gamepass (I think that's what it was called) for $30/mo (IIRC) for unlimited rentals, just 1 at a time. We'd take it home, rip it to my Xbox then put the disk in his and we'd play through whatever the game was until we finished or got bored, then rinse and repeat.

Had I been able to drive at that time I would have tried to get the family van that had pull down TV (tiny) screen in it so I could do what you did.

I always wanted to mod mine, but was worried about Xbox Live ban (even on OG xbox)

This had me wondering what the name of the chip I intended to buy was ... which had me remembering then name Bennie Huang, which led me to realize the OG Xbox he modded is on display near me at the Henry Ford museum (!): https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digita...

> Not on exhibit to the public.

I never had Xbox Live, but I wanted to preserve the option so I used an Xecuter that included an on/off switch that you used double-sided tape to attach just under the power button. Flip the switch and reboot to the stock BIOS and you were good to go with online gaming.

I remember that there were 2 games that you could use to modify your xbox but I only remember 1 game. Mechassault.

Mechassault, 007 Agent Under Fire and Splinter Cell.

More recently there are other game exploits, such as THPS4. However, since ENDGAME you don't even need a game to softmod.

I think I used splinter cell. The exploit was also only in a specific version of the game. I remember having to look at a version number on the cd when buying to confirm I was getting the right one.

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