wip: feat: xbox modding post
This commit is contained in:
114
content/posts/xbox-modding.md
Normal file
114
content/posts/xbox-modding.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
|
||||
+++
|
||||
date = '2025-01-27'
|
||||
draft = false
|
||||
title = 'Softmod your Original Xbox Today'
|
||||
tags = ['technical', 'games', 'modding']
|
||||
categories = ['technical', 'personal']
|
||||
+++
|
||||
|
||||
If you want to skip the personal story, the tutorial part starts [here]({{< ref "xbox-modding.md#softmodding-the-xbox" >}}).
|
||||
|
||||
The original Xbox is a phenominal little machine.
|
||||
In this post I will go over my journey of modding my own personal xbox.
|
||||
Feel free to follow along, but this is mostly just a recollection of my journey for the sake of writing it down.
|
||||
|
||||
## First Things First
|
||||
If you own an Xbox Original and you haven't removed the clock capacitor yet, DO IT NOW. YOU SHOULD'VE DONE IT SEVERAL
|
||||
YEARS AGO, IT *WILL* KILL YOUR XBOX.
|
||||
Even if you are not sure if it's removed or not, please check to make sure. This is incredibly important.
|
||||
|
||||
With that out of the way, let's begin.
|
||||
|
||||
## The Beginnings
|
||||
It all started with I was about 14 years old.
|
||||
I remember it clearly.
|
||||
It was early 2010 and I had saved up my allowance for a while and wanted to buy something for myself.
|
||||
So as any 14 year old buy with marginal financial freedom, I went to the local GameStop just to browse.
|
||||
I was already an avid Halo fan, so I was looking around at the Halo 3 and Gears of War copies that they had, as well as
|
||||
the other xbox 360 games showing off on the store shelves.
|
||||
But alas, I did not own an Xbox 360, or any (real) videogame console for that matter.
|
||||
So I opted to buy something else, I don't remember what excactly.
|
||||
What I do remember is that when I went up to the counter, I saw that they had a used Xbox original (back then we called
|
||||
it the xbox 1) for sale!
|
||||
And only for 1001kr! Which was... not excactly cheap at the time, but hey, I didn't know better.
|
||||
I had saved up just over 1000kr! And the Halo 2 Collectors edition was bundled with it! Holy crap!!
|
||||
This was a match made in heaven and I bought it on the spot in favor of whatever else I wanted.
|
||||
Proud, and with my heart pumping (this was the biggest purchase I had ever done at the time), I took it home and
|
||||
deliberately hid it from my mother, because she wouldn't approve of me spending my hard earned allowance on a videogame
|
||||
console.
|
||||
|
||||
A couple of years earlier, my sister and I received a small CRT TV with an in-built DVD player for our rooms so we
|
||||
could watch movies and (some) TV in our rooms. This CRT had an S-VIDEO input.
|
||||
I remember that it was such an adventure trying to figure out how to plug the Xbox to the TV. The figure-8 cable scared
|
||||
me when it sparked when I plugged it into the Xbox and I thought I broke it, but I just had to change the input on the
|
||||
TV. And when I finally got it working I was rewarded with the comforting green glow of the internal clock needing to be
|
||||
set. I promptly pressed 'A' without changing anything, inserted the Halo 2 disc and played for the first time on my very
|
||||
own video game console.
|
||||
|
||||
I sneak-play'ed so much Halo 2, that I missed a lot of homework, and sleep. I distinctly remember one night I played
|
||||
(with no sound mind you) for uncountable hours. Oh to be a kid again. I know that at one point my mom found out and she
|
||||
didn't actually care that I "wasted" the money. She only cared about my bedtime (ugh!) and my homework (double ugh!) -
|
||||
which is fair, but still.
|
||||
|
||||
A couple months after the purchase, I wanted to try out the Xbox Live features and play Halo 2 online (I did not know
|
||||
you'd have to pay for it) so I found a way to connect an ethernet cable to the box and tried connecting.
|
||||
But I was not able to get any connection. I kept trouble-shooting and then I realized that LITERALLY THE WEEK BEFORE
|
||||
Microsoft had closed the Xbox Original live service down. What a bummer dude. Welp. At least I had the Halo 2 campaign.
|
||||
|
||||
## Getting a Taste for Modding
|
||||
Much later. I am now in my ??'s.
|
||||
|
||||
TODO:
|
||||
- Building my own PC
|
||||
- Building skills
|
||||
- Fixing my laptop (which broke all the time)
|
||||
- Modding the Wii
|
||||
- Modding the Playstation 2
|
||||
|
||||
The first game console that I modded was a Wii that I bought on a flea-market for next to nothing.
|
||||
Side tangent: The Wii is the _easiest_ console to softmod. You only need an SDCard - that's it.
|
||||
This Wii modding lit a fire under me, and I started taking apart
|
||||
|
||||
## Softmodding the Xbox {#softmodding-the-xbox}
|
||||
There are a couple of directions you can take when it comes to modding the OG Xbox.
|
||||
I will be exclusively *softmodding* mine, as if I were to solder anything that is required for hardmodding it, I would
|
||||
at best brick the console and at worst burn my apartment to the ground.
|
||||
This mod _does_ require purchasing some hardware, namely:
|
||||
|
||||
- **An xbox (male) to USB (female) adapter.**
|
||||
|
||||
These are increasingly difficult to find, so if you tend to drag your feet on projects like these (like I tend to)
|
||||
buy it now! Or you might have to make one yourself.
|
||||
|
||||
- **An older USB stick.**
|
||||
|
||||
The Xbox will reject most modern USB flash drives - it has to be a fairly small one (I used a 4GiB one), and no, you
|
||||
cannot just set the partition sizes to be small, the hardware has to be old.
|
||||
|
||||
- **A DVD burner and some (writable and blank) DVDs.**
|
||||
|
||||
This is mostly just to burn a single DVD with the softmodding tools on it. I think you can buy pre-burned discs, but
|
||||
if you have a DVD burner (generally just a good doohickey to have), it's much easier to just use `xfburn` to burn the
|
||||
disc yourself.
|
||||
|
||||
### Software
|
||||
I am using GNU/Linunx, but all of these are also available on Microsoft Windows - I haven't checked if OSX have these,
|
||||
but I wouldn't be surprised.
|
||||
|
||||
## TODO:
|
||||
- Link to MrMario (check for peertube link as a backup)
|
||||
- Xbox softmodding tool disc
|
||||
- Extras (chimp)
|
||||
- Holy crap the IDE hot-swapping
|
||||
|
||||
## Upgrading the Xbox
|
||||
Now that we have softmodded it, we can choose to upgrade the aging IDE harddrive with a slightly newer and larger
|
||||
harddrive! This is totally optional, but I highly recommend it as it'll enable you to store many more games on the
|
||||
console itself, rather than mucking about with DVD discs and a dying DVD drive.
|
||||
|
||||
## Thanks
|
||||
I would like to thank [bringus studios](https://www.youtube.com/@BringusStudios) for keeping the interest of console
|
||||
hacking alive and a special thanks to [mr mario](https://www.youtube.com/@MrMario2011) for his fantastic tutorials.
|
||||
Please check both of these creators out.
|
||||
|
||||
{{< centered image="/6616144.png" >}}
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user