[plug] X-Box status update

[Harry McNally]

On Fri, 25 Oct 2002 17:05:22 +0800 (WST) Matt Kemner <zombie at penguincare.com.au> wrote:

> 
> Since everyone's gone quiet again, I thought I'd put in another request
> for discussion on the remaining issues, as well as on any issues I have
> not foreseen.
> 
> > a) Legality - ie is Microsoft going to get nasty because a Linux User
> >    Group is advertising the fact they are running Linux on an X-Box?
> 
> From what I can tell, the only point of contention was the BIOS used on
> the mod-chips, which originally used some Microsoft code to work.
> The latest xbox BIOS versions available from xbox-linux.sf.net do not
> contain any MS code, so no copyright is infringed.
> 
> With Sony losing the recent mod-chip case it appears that the use of
> mod-chips is legal in Australia.

This might be a silly question (I haven't been following the XBox project work closely), can anyone advise on success with reflashing the existing (on-board) BIOS chip ?

The 27 wire mod appears to disable that chip altogether. If, as Matt explains above, there is now a BIOS image without any Microsoft code, surely reflashing the BIOS is feasible? This is so in the PLUG situation because we don't want to go back to a gaming machine once we have a real OS loaded.

Here are some resources:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/tsop.php
http://www.warp2search.net/article.php?sid=5997&mode=thread&order=0

Am I missing something ?

Harry

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