Hi, I have found an Alpha Dev Kit for the Xbox 360, it's a Power Mac G5 "property of Microsoft" used in the early devlopment of the Xbox 360. I have the Mac... but not the software and i search a copy of the XDK for this DevKit. I have found that there is a CD or DVD recovery for this Dev Kit, but i can't find him. Can you help me ?
I wish I can talk to someone I know as fast as I can, but i probebly see him next year (jan-2015) I know somebody, but have to ask.
ill pm you with some detail of why I dont have any more news, I definitely want to help if this person I know has a recovery disk. and well, its an interesting device, that definitely need some software. 19-3 UPDATE: No positive update. He cannot find the disk so far. I keep bugging the person about it in the hopes. but so far no luck (i dint see him searching, just a facebook pm) Meanwhile Ill keep an eye out on google and such aswell, his words that a recovery should be on the internets is said again, so dunno.
May (27) 2004 Project Giano Ok, No update from the guy I talked to yet, he could not yet find the disks (I did not ask to bring the Apple, could be asked cause I would like the next thing on real hardware maybe?) But I remember project Giano, from Microsoft Research, "Giano is a framework for the full-system simulation of arbitrary computer systems, with special emphasis on the hardware-software co-development of system software and Real-Time embedded applications." They probebly took this and later made the xbox one aswell (I should try cross reverense the project members and leaders to the xbox one project) long thing short, its capable of running PowerPC executables, and its running an XBox 360 kernel (still trying to figure out wich version and how this relates to xbox 360 retail. im a xbox classic man, but hey, this is close enough, its cool, so I should investigate) it also runs DOOM and WinCE, its realy a hardware like simulation framework, dont expect games at all. "AlphaKit.plx MacIntosh G5 simulation, running an early version of the Xbox kernel." But there is a zecdrom.img wich contains the executables and there are rom files (bios/firmware) like AlphaRom.bin So it should be posible to do some research, and maybe run it? But please, be adviced that it could break your Alpha, this code is changed for this simulation framework. But project giano and the dates make it a very great posibility that this might be a real deal. ".e:\xenonsd\may04\private\test\testexe\r300test.c" " char *in_name = "G5AppleRom.dump";" "e:\xenonsd\may04\private\xtl\live\auth\localcache.cpp" "\Device\Harddisk0\partition1\CACHE" xboxkrnl.exe "e:\xenonsd\may04\private\ntos\halx\xbox\reboot.c" And this piece of comment "D3D has detected that you are not using 256MB video card. Contact MarkMcc if you don't have one." Giano_XBox360_g5.zip 7.8 MB https://mega.co.nz/#!195CGCgY!NcNo5tj_Q9KKJxeYUVCFuwtgjymW1pAz54ZICEkVKVc The folder where I also put the complete giano project and documents. https://mega.co.nz/#F!JpI11JQL!9tqQdm3XtvELnRKKLiY5Iw Please note, I dont have a G5, never had. This has not been tested by me on the real metal, just played with the simulation framework. Also note that Microsoft them selves have released all of this so its for our research pleasure. EDIT: see some notes about build number "417" and mostly"422". with 1880 being the retail one, its posible. I checked the Pdb files using a pdbinspector.
Your welcome, and also The original project website, forgot to post it: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/giano/
Sorry, thats the Giano system simulation framwork simulating a ppc system with a ATI R500 AGP graphic card and Xbox 360 kernel. The colors we see are a test application that writes simple colors to the ATI card (should work on real hardware, ofcourse many features are leftout. Also a debug window is shown where one could see that default.exe is run after xboxkernel.exe has setup the kernel (duh) So I dont know alott about developing for the 360, but this seams alott like the alpha kit for the xbox classic, but way earlier fase (like "kernel" works on cpu Yay) So I hope it kinda answers it, or else find your self some coffee and read the MS papers belonging to the giano project. basicly they tested their kernel in simulation. either before or after. files seems legit from before retail.
Yeah only thing I noticed was the ROM file size on a working unit is 1MB and I think this one is 1.5MB
This one could have extra stuff, your willing to share your Rom? (debuging, strings, bootcode that normaly alsready in hardwre?)
This is rather interesting. The 1.5MB rom in tests/g5 is Microsoft's Invisible Computing environment for generic g5/pcc tests (g5.plx and G6.plx). The potential xbox code "AlphaRom.bin" is only 174Kb (used in AlphaKit.plx). The only readable string in that file is "MsftXboxA", suggestive of it being Xbox related. I was messing around with AlphaKit.plx and noticed it doesn't actually need the reference to G50bl.bin to load xboxkrnl.exe and boot the example exe. Simply AlphaRom.bin is sufficient. I'm still at a loss for how to start kd.exe against the environment. I see it exports a named pipe for 1394 kernel debugging, but connecting to that is vexing. My next thought is how to get it to boot the included XShell.exe. Simply renaming it to default.exe seems like it should do the trick. I tried a number of different tools to recreate the zecdrom.img file and none of them load in Giano correctly. Part of the image header mentions "XDiscImage 2.45", so perhaps a special tool is needed to build a conformant image file.
Im still very much learning IDA, but testexe.exe and default.exe (also, they are binairy identical) has a message holding: "R300DRV: ATI Radeon 9800 was not found!" and "D3D has detected that you are not using 256MB video card.\n" "Contact MarkMcc if you don't have one.\n" Trying to create a image file, not sure what the exact diference XDiskImage and just CDImage will make, somehow more debug info would help maybe in a Giano paper. Ow, there we have debugging, i need some time to use this: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/invisible/ Serplexd Its a mess, alott of files, websites with info and stuff.. probebly need the real virtual driver correctly installed( I did) and regeistery entry made by driver (instead of manualy) I think my \\.\pipe\1394KDPipe isnt correctly setup. I did have WinDbg working but unrelated to this. EDIT, Ok probebly not the correct way and I dont have it figured out completetly yet, but WInDgb kinda works: source Search for 1394KDPipe My process ID was 5993 then I used winDbg to attach to a process with this ID. (I could not restart the process) (it looks like debugging the process itself instead of the debug pipe (wich is a file of some sorts)
Sort of got KD running through windbg. Code: windbg.exe -k "com:pipe,port=\\.\pipe\1394KDPipe,resets=0,reconnect" The debug connection seems to die after being passed to default.exe. This could be because xbdm.xml is renamed "xbdm.xml.dont". I loaded in one of my... oddly created disk images.
Hmm, your results looking promising (especialy the fatx area, might UDF fatx? or its just trying to find a hdd?) Dont get the kernel debug working, im at work, using windows 7 (64 bit) and you? (Can also use kd.exe for this, but windbg has a nice gui) tried something else: "ReadFromPipe call to ReadFile failed" hmm, so new to this stuff, might try on my laptop or another pc tonight. Did you try using CDimage ? and mimic the settings to make the image apear like the zecdrom.img ? I think they turned of ISO-9660 file system, but my latest image contained some extra filetables, im also new in CD/dvd rom structures.
I had the KD working under Windows XP and Windows 7 64bit just using the off-the-shelf debugging tools included in the free to download Windows SDK. It's a little sketchy and sometimes takes a few attempts to get it running.
Surprisingly, you can find all of these materials on Microsoft's website. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/02e2edbf-c76c-47d5-b9c0-2c9915c63e98/default.aspx
