The photo below shows the fate of about 98% of the Xbox Alpha Dev Kit's... ...The picture isn't that clear but it was taken in a Game Development Studio showing an Alpha smashed into a thousand pieces as a sign of triumph moving away from Alpha Dev Kit's to Beta Consoles! ...The other 1.5% of Alpha Dev Kits were converted to 'regular' P.C's, thus rendering them usless as Xbox Dev Kit's ...About 0.5% of Alpha Dev Kit's managed to survive into preservation ...Some people are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
Not too much of a tragedy though, as with the beta/alpha 360 kits, the important bit is the software - the hardware is mac G5's
The hardware BIOS is critical on the 360 Dev Kit's just like it is on the Alpha Xbox Dev Kits... ...In other words the hardware is important.
That reminds me, talking of rare graphics cards here's the BIOS of the NV20 on the Alpha Dev Kit loading up...
Granted it's not specifically Xbox related, but how many of you have an NV1 card? Seeing that BIOS screen reminded me of it for some reason, heh. -hl718
Me! kekekekekeke :smt033 That BIOS text is interesting, though - does that NV20 have its own memory, unlike the Xbox with its UMA?
Yes it has 64MB RAM on a traditional plug in GF3 'type' AGP board, flashed with a Prototype Engineering BIOS. ...The UMA part is 'emulated' on the Alpha Dev Kit's to simulate the final console UMA.
This post was about an Xbox board with an odd connector, the picture no longer works so here's a different picture to see what was discussed. Look between CPU heatsink and the FAN. And the updated dead SEGA link for those interested. http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=729
I dont know if the connector was used for the Chihiro development, but im pretty sure its Jtag (the black connecter behind the CPU and next to the fan. The orange connector next to the AVIP and Network is the "5th" usb port, used for connecting keyboards while they made the earlier dashboards and testing, it was removed in later revisions. for Sega Chihiro development it might have an use aswell. I asume a small kabel went to the DVD emu board as this has a USB connector and connector for a kabel like the orange one. on DVT4 boards the USB connector is obscured/inaccesibly. (it could also be repurposed with another board inbetween when Sega made their Chihiro board to interface with the xbox. The 5th usb port/hub0 is nolonger activated by the kernel, I dont even know if the pins are bondwired at all (the balls excist, but do they work? at least the traces are nolonger there on retail boards.
