Hacking the Xbox

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Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering
familiar GNU/Linux development environment to the Xbox enables a
larger base of software hackers to join the Xbox hacking project. With
GNU/Linux, the Xbox can run a wide variety of application software, from
free open-source video games to word processing applications to clustering
software for building Beowulf-style computer clusters.
Installing Xbox-Linux
Currently, in order to run Xbox-Linux, you need to install a GNU/Linux
boot ROM using an alternate firmware device. This requires opening up the
Xbox. Chapter 10 describes methods for building and installing an alternate
firmware device for the Xbox via the LPC interface. Several vendors now
offer easy-to-install LPC interface alternative firmware devices. Notably, the
Xodus/Matrix device is the first alternative firmware device on the market
with an entirely solderless installation procedure. All the tools you need to
install the Xodus/Matrix device are described in Chapter 1, “Voiding the
Warranty,” and the Xodus/Matrix device itself comes with some easy-to-
Profile: Michael Steil
Michael, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?
Born in 1979 in Erding/Germany, I’m a student of computer
science at the Technische Universität München. I teach
Assembly to students in the first semester, and I plan to have
a MA degree next year. I have been working with computers
since I was ten years old; my first computer was a Commodore
64, followed soon by a 386 PC. My main interests
were always hardware and operating systems, and I was
especially fascinated by the diversity of hardware architectures
(Commodore, PC, Amiga, Macintosh, . . .) as well as
popular embedded systems, such as gaming consoles. (Did
you know the “SEGA CD” has three CPUs, one Z80 and two
M68000?). That’s why I bought many video game systems
for experimentation, such as the Nintendo SNES, the SEGA
Genesis, and the Nintendo Game Boy. I also had a look at
Linux for the SEGA Dreamcast, but I have never seen Linux
for the Sony Playstation 2, since the whole set was really too
expensive for me, both for experimentation and for real use.
How did you get into Xbox hacking, and in particular, the
Xbox-Linux project?
On April 30th 2002, I bought an Xbox, convinced that it
would be a great toy for hacking, and well-suited for Linux.
After looking at the system software for an hour or two (I
bought no game), I unscrewed the Xbox. Looking for information
about hacking the box disappointed me at first: I
didn’t find much more than how to connect the hard disk
to a PC, and a site about Xbox Linux with virtually no information
on it. So I decided to start my own Xbox hacking site
and put information on it that I found out by connecting
the hard disk to a PC.
(continued)