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In Xbox modding, there are some terms used and people seem to get confused on them. One of the most common is: "You have to softmod to TSOP flash" No you do not. The confusion is over what an exploit is and what a softmod is. An exploit is required to run the softmod, but they are not the same thing. The exploit is a buffer overflow or some other sort of attack that can be done on the unmodified software, to make it run unsigned code. Since each application still has to pass the checks that the retail bios runs on it, we have to sign each application. Therefore, practically speaking we can only run 1 application per exploit. So, we just sign the flashing software for the exploit, run the exploit and it loads the flashing software. We flash the TSOP and away we go. No more need for exploits, softmods, or locked hdds. The softmod is running an exploit at boot and specifically replacing the stock bios in memory with a boot from media bios. This causes the unmodified system to operate from this point on (until it is powered off) exactly like a hardware modified console. So we can see, to TSOP flash we only need to run a flashing program. So we don't need to softmod. We only need an exploit. Next would be TSOP and EEPROM. The TSOP is an EEPROM but not THE eeprom. Bunnie called the 8 pin chip that stores the serial, hdd key, online key, etc the "eeprom". He called the EEPROM that contains the bios, the "TSOP" because he couldn't very well call that an eeprom as well. Imagine the confusion! TSOP just means "Thin Small Outline Package". This name basically describes fact that it's a non-square rectangle with the pins on two sides. I'll add more as I think of them.