Greetings, from a not so sunny UK!

[DoctorPixel]

Hi All,

I'm Dave. Been tinkering with gadgets since I was a teenager (I'm 40 now) so not new to modding in general, but new to the OG Xbox modding scene.
I had a go at modding Xbox 360's what feels like a lifetime ago now, when Team Xecuter were the big king in town. But unfortunately, I had a run-in with them for reasons I am none the wiser about to this day, and the whole experience put me off modding Xboxes for a while.

A few months back, I was looking around a car boot sale for game boys to buy and mod as that is what I have been doing more recently, and came across a gentlemen selling an original Xbox for £30. He told me it was fully working and for some reason my interest was peaked.
Anyway, I got it home and fired it up only to be greeted with error 7 and the very familiar sound of a clicking hard drive - before I even researched the error codes I knew the hard drive was a goner. So, I began researching how to replace a failed hard drive, and so began my introduction to the world of original Xbox modding!

Fast forward a couple of months and I have replaced the hard drive, removed the clock cap, determined I have an original 1.0 board and begun delving into the world of modchips. I also have a basic XBMC4Gamers dashboard installed with a couple of games in CCI format.
I wanted a simple project to begin with from which I could learn about having PCB boards made, soldering components, flashing chips, and installing them in the Xbox. Having stumbled across the open source Jafar project, I decided to take advantage of that and have begun producing a batch of my own Jafar chips. I now have enough components to build a batch of 94 of them and have 20 of them made, fully tested and working so far, flashed with the latest versions of PrometheOS and Cerbios. I will be offering them for sale once the whole batch is fully built and tested.

After this I would like to have a go at building some OpenXeniums, and then finally the new Modxo chips.

I'd also like to learn about doing the 128mb RAM upgrade and the complexities (if any) involved with that and also a HDMI mod.

But all in good time. I recognise I need to learn to walk before I run and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in and if I can contribute in anyway whilst on my journey then I absolutely will.

[nikeymikey]

Welcome from a fellow member in the rain soaked UK!!   Hope you enjoy the site. 

The 128mb mod is quite simple if you have a steady enough hand and decent tools. HDMI mods are a little more complicated, there is an open source one on the way "OGXHD" you can find the latest info on it in the Xbox-Scene discord server.  Stellar is the only option available at retail right now but has its downsides which I won't go into but all the info is out there if you want to search it up. 

Nice job on building your Jafar chips. I would probably skip the OpenXeniums now and go straight on to the Modxo chips instead. There is a lot of action going on with those involving future features and tbh it seems that Modxo is going to end up being THE chip to have for the OG. There are custom board designs in the works that will support everything the pico based chips can offer. Again there is lots of info re this in the Xbox Scene discord server. 

How much are you planning on selling your Jafar chips for? 

 

 

 

[DoctorPixel]

1 hour ago, nikeymikey said:

Welcome from a fellow member in the rain soaked UK!!   Hope you enjoy the site. 

The 128mb mod is quite simple if you have a steady enough hand and decent tools. HDMI mods are a little more complicated, there is an open source one on the way "OGXHD" you can find the latest info on it in the Xbox-Scene discord server.  Stellar is the only option available at retail right now but has its downsides which I won't go into but all the info is out there if you want to search it up. 

Nice job on building your Jafar chips. I would probably skip the OpenXeniums now and go straight on to the Modxo chips instead. There is a lot of action going on with those involving future features and tbh it seems that Modxo is going to end up being THE chip to have for the OG. There are custom board designs in the works that will support everything the pico based chips can offer. Again there is lots of info re this in the Xbox Scene discord server. 

How much are you planning on selling your Jafar chips for? 

 

 

 

Hi Nikey, thanks for the welcome. Yeah I read into Project Stellar and the fact its a closed eco-system plus the 'stellar' cost, pardon the pun, I decided that isn't for me.

I was thinking of selling the Jafars at £10 + postage for 1, £18 (£9 each) plus postage for 2, £24 (£8 each) plus postage for 3, £28 (£7 each) for 4 and £30 (£6 each) plus postage for 5.

I know you can get the knock-off aladdins for cheap on Aliexpress but with these Jafars you have a 1mb flash chip and you don't have any of that nonsense about having to take the flash chip out and program it externally - PrometheOS allows you to flash via a web-browser providing you got your Xbox hooked up to your network.

Not to mention, I chose to get my boards done in a nice black with gold enig contacts, and have chose amber LEDS which are a bit different to the typical red, green and blue LEDs you see on most chips. I think they look pretty neat (not that it really matters once they're hidden away inside the console lol!). I've also customised the Cerbios logo to be amber themed to match the LED on the chip. Just added my own little twist for the fun of it really

I did wonder if looking into the OpenXeniums was a bit pointless now - when I was looking at the cost of the Xilinx CPLD chip most places are saying it's no longer being manufactured so the cost is only going to soar as stock levels diminish anyway.

Still, plenty of options on the horizon and modxo looks really promising.

Do you have a link to join the discord server you referred to? and any other related servers that you might reccomend?

Cheers!

[nikeymikey]

Try this link.... I'm not super discord savvy but i think this will get you in lol

https://discord.gg/VcdSfajQGK

[DoctorPixel]

Yep, that's got me in. Thanks pal.

[dtomcat]

On 9/26/2024 at 10:13 AM, nikeymikey said:

there is an open source one on the way "OGXHD"

“OXHD”.   it’s still a ways out. Mostly working.  I’m getting into 1.6 firmware soon and I know another revision is coming soon   1.0-1.4 is working pretty reliably. here is my current prototype.  Good image quality on my 1.4.  Just 1.6 needs some love as the pixel bus is reversed. @Harcroftis doing some amazing work

 

[nikeymikey]

Looking good @dtomcat. I take it the design for the flex cable can pretty much only be done one way as that looks very similar to the one I have here I just haven't plucked up the courage to have a go at installing it yet lol. 

[dtomcat]

There were changes from the one I have.   1.6 flex hasn’t been started yet 

[Harcroft]

21 hours ago, nikeymikey said:

Looking good @dtomcat. I take it the design for the flex cable can pretty much only be done one way as that looks very similar to the one I have here I just haven't plucked up the courage to have a go at installing it yet lol. 

I could have done a fully different flex cable, but the most requested feature for the OpenXHD feature was compatibility with the flex cable from existing HDMI products. So with that in mind I converted the original flex cable @Ryzee119designed:

and converted it to work with the same pinout and location on the Y axis of existing products on the market. This way people can swap between HDMI mods as they see fit without having to remove the entire flex cable and install a different one.

This isn't the current design but it's fairly recent:

I asked for input from modders who regularly install PS2 and N64 flex cables for what would make their jobs easier, and used that input to add a lot of quality of life improvements.

OpenXHD or OXHD is coming along, and yes as it based off open source work by Ryzee119. Once we reach a state that it can be released, it will be released as open source.

Edited September 28, 2024 by Harcroft

[nikeymikey]

3 hours ago, Harcroft said:

I could have done a fully different flex cable, but the most requested feature for the OpenXHD feature was compatibility with the flex cable from existing HDMI products. So with that in mind I converted the original flex cable @Ryzee119designed:

and converted it to work with the same pinout and location on the Y axis of existing products on the market. This way people can swap between HDMI mods as they see fit without having to remove the entire flex cable and install a different one.

This isn't the current design but it's fairly recent:

I asked for input from modders who regularly install PS2 and N64 flex cables for what would make their jobs easier, and used that input to add a lot of quality of life improvements.

OpenXHD or OXHD is coming along, and yes as it based off open source work by Ryzee119. Once we reach a state that it can be released, it will be released as open source.

I want one!!!

[DoctorPixel]

This is absolutely fascinating, I look forward to seeing the finished article. But how do you guys even know where to start with something like this?

I’d love to learn how to build or at least be able to contribute to a project building some kind of mod for a games console. I have a background in programming but it’s mainly web based things, would love to learn how to program microcontrollers and such to do cool things. Then of course there’s PCB design that’s another thing I’d love to learn.

How does somebody even work out, for example, the Xbox boot sequence and then figure out that you can program a modchip to interrupt that boot sequence and make it boot something different? It’s fascinating and I’d love to learn how to do it but just don’t know where to start - it’s an absolute minefield of information out there, feels like you can’t see the woods for the trees sometimes!