Looking for more info on creating an Alpha XDK

Here is a video showwing mine working:
Please skip ahead just to see it working to
3 minutes and 10 seconds.

Did noticed that a floppy disk isnt needed. I put an fan on the CPU, gets a bit hot. No case :S

and I dont get kernel debugging to work, should install the sdk and/or correct settings for the Laptop im using.

EDIT:
I recieved the USB card, and normal xboxcontrollers just work

 

I'm very impressed man, well done

 

Nice to see this working. I might try it myself sometime once you get everything worked out.

 

That is amazing! to bad that guy on craigslist did not want 1000 bucks for his alpha tower PC case. That would be perfect for the case! But 1000 bucks is totally insane! Keep up the good work! I want one real bad!

 

got mine going aswell, only need to figure out the sound situation, probly going to have to homebrew the sound card i think,

 

The floppy was mounted backwards in the case, it served no actual function on the Alphas. Presumably, they used it to flash the firmware onto the GPU, but I'm not sure why they weren't just removed.

 

I think so aswell. Ill keep it just in case. Awaiting my usb card and start working on a pcb (im allowed at the uni to make a few. Have to do via's myself sadly)

UPDATEL: Recieved my Usb card, as said before you can use normal xbox controllers ith a AlphaII.

 

So I am very interested in also building my self a XBOX Alpha XDK. I would replace my Retro PC with all parts needed for doing this. At the moment there already is Intel Desktop Board installed (which is older then the one used in the xbox alpha xdk). As the XBOX Alpha XDK uses RD-Ram and mine uses SD-RAM. I have an P3 CPU laying around and the Intel Desktop Board has an Nvidia Geforce 2 on Board. Will try if I can get it to work und this hardware already or if it have to buy the right GPU and Motherboard.

Maybe the Software runs or more hardware then expected, NICs and USBs which fit are cheap compared to the Soundcard and the Motherboard, right? Which NICs work with the Alpha XDK? USB-Cards need the OPTi 82c861 Chipset, right?

It is already 4am in germany so I am going to bed now and soon I will try and report.

 

You're going to need a VC 820 motherboard with exactly 128mb of RDRAM. Although I have seen a video of an alpha system with 256mb. I believe an HP 734938-001 NIC should work. Pretty sure that's what codeasm used. For the USB card get a xircom portgear 2 port card. For the graphics card get an NV-1017. You won't be able to find the sound card but it should boot without it. There's an effort to recreate the original sound card by some members here. Be sure to get at least a 20GB hard drive. Set the hard drive to master and the cd drive to slave.

I'm in the process of creating my own but it doesn't work yet so take the above information with a grain of salt. I am however using an NV-879 flashed with engineering bios for the graphics card so that might be why.

 

any chance on getting a high res clip of that boot splash animation??

 

I'm sure i posted it somewhere on YouTube

 

Networkcard, Im sure ive posted before (and cant see the ic itself, but you probebly can google the fcc code)
http://codeasm.com/xbox/images/alpha/SL736285.JPG

Its not about the same boards, my gues is it should be the same chipsets. so a Motherboard with the Intel 820 chipset (NorthBridge 82820)
might be enough (Dell made a few PC's with them after i googled a bit, dint find any in reallife) so not sure if same chipset, other board will work at all (some notes tell me, no onboard sound. it should not work atleast from the xbox alpha percpectife)

Videocard NV-1017 is what most of us got. if you get another one, GPU code should be the same (maybe the IC under the heatsing the same?) same story here, the xbox alpha kernel has hardcoded drivers for probebly only this videocard (as in VID/PID, code support).

WIth a (random?) cpu, motherboard and memory, without usb or sound you should be able to kernel debug remotely.
Get the right Videocard and you can start looking at awesomness. No need for custom bios or videocard firmware/bios(its firmware right?)
Videocard software should be capable of understanding the xbox alpha dashboard code... Games I could not test due missing soundcard.

Not intresting personal story:
I made no progress on the soundcard so far beside designing the ic's in eagle. I moved to a new house and everything is now beside my desk to work on. Still unpacking boxes to my "lab-room" and soonish finish a board to send of (found the IC's I orderd.) shoudl do this...
Maybe another member is WAAYYY quicker and is able to supply us earlier, so much school, so much xboxes to unpack. The SO is asking for cleaningup the house.

 

OK, just to get the info all in one post:


Needed hardware:

Mother board - Intel VC820
Processor - Intel Pentium III 733mhz
RAM - 128mb RD Ram (1 stick RAM and 1 terminator)
Video card - Nvidea NV-1017
Sound card- Unknown
Network card - Intel 10/100 PCI PN: 734938-001
USB card - Xircom Portgear PN: PGPCI2


Needed software:

Mother board BIOS - LINK(?)
Video card BIOS - LINK(?)
Software - Bormans upload




Thinking of building one of these, but wanted to get the hardware/software all sorted. Even if I do not end up building one, a list of all needed parts and software in one place should help someone looking to build one their self.
If I am missing something, or included wrong info feel free to correct me.

 

Network Card - Intel 10/100 PCI PN: 734938-001
USB Card - Xircom Portgear PN: PGPCI2

Any P## Intel VC820 BIOS works.
Engineering Sample video bios is not needed, the link also has a couple confirmed working P50 video cards

 

Thanks for the info... Now just out of curiosity, would it be possible to set up a dual boot with say windows XP or 98 with this setup?

I'll have to read up more on the video cards later. Looks like there just needs to be a suitable sound card to pull this all together.

 

Just posting this because I don't think my last post survived the forum migration but I got my kit working using an NV-879 Rev A video card with engineering firmware. It would probably work with stock firmware too. I also found out that two 64MB RAM sticks won't work. A 128MB stick and terminator are required. I saw a video of an alpha kit one time with two 128MB ram sticks so that might work as well.

 

I got everything needed minus the sound card, USB card and PSU. I am getting 2 or 3 junk computers for free this weekend, so hopefully I will get a PSU. I also need a dvd drive and floppy, but I am assuming one of the three computers will have those

I know it says at least a 20gb HDD, but does anyone know if an 8gb will work just to see if it will all work?


total of parts bought is $45. I am sure they can be had cheaper if you take your time and wait. That does not include the $200+ the case, HDD, PSU, floppy or dvd drive

 

...It HAS to be 20gb, or a partition of exactly 20gb, on a larger HDD.................The bootloader checks to see that it's byte perfect, before it will run.

 

I use a 40gb PS2 HDD without issue on my screwing-around-drive. I didnt partition it any special way.

 

I'm pretty sure I grabbed a an 80gb hdd at one point and it worked fine also. I'm not sure it checks hdd size at all. I forget. I lost a bunch when I moved. Not saying you're wrong, I don't have the tools to back it up until I decide open boxes...some day.