(WIP) New modchip coming in

You probably got enough testers, but Id love to buy one to test out for you

 

Mod Chip mention at Team Xecuter Forum

Long story: someone posted a note on Reddit regarding a Team Xecuter mod chip in an original Xbox. It generated a lot of traffic to the Team Xecuter forums and brought them down. After the traffic normalized they started a thread about it and old modchips. I posted a letter requesting a new run of TX products for the venerable system and got a response from Xecuter. He basically said the X3 would never happen again because one part was no longer available, but that he had some X2's for sale. Not what I want.

I mentioned Benny's work on a new modchip. Maybe it will generate some additional interest. I'm watching this closely.

CC

 

I personally can't wait to get my hands on a few of these chips. Benny is really doing an amazing job.

 

Would love a chip to play imports, a new solution like this should be great.

 

You do know that you can do that with (almost?) all modchips?
anyway, awesome modchip besides being able to play import Jpn or us games I can do LCD things and maybe hackery extra stuff (im in pal region).

 

Well, I do know that yes. I'd probably only want an Xecuter 3 though, beside anything more recent.

 

Thanks for the kind words.
Good ideas are not tossed away!
However adding hardware features is over. I want to get first revision released for Q1 2014 so I don't have time to go back in PCB development.

OS will continue to be updated routinely. I do hope some coders will jump in as they get a unit themselves. Right now, UI look is not that great and I don't have much experience/motivation to make it look prettier. I prefer investing time in adding features.

Thanks but yes. People will be contacted shortly after I've assembled and personnally tested some units.

Thanks for the word, I did post in the same thread to try and get some attention. I also tried to contact a reddit user who said he was admin of Team-Xecuter's forums... no reply.
I'll keep hoping for at least an answer, wether it be yes or no.

Soon if everything goes well.


I also forgot to mention another new feature for the OS. The code is now compatible across all Xbox revisions(sorry I don't have any debug unit so I assume 1.0 to 1.6b). Previously, a separate build was generated for 1.6b consoles. It's not that big of a deal but if I want to ship out units with the OS pre-installed, 1.6b consoles would have been problematic to support. I tested it myself and the same OS binary boots fine on 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.6b.

I grew tired of waiting for an answer from TX about the source code of flashBios 3.0.3-1(which boots across all Xbox revisions). So, I wrote a little program to extract X-codes from the compiled binary and construct a text file with all the executed X-codes in the format used in Cromwell sources. It's a real mess in there but it gets the job done.
I then blindly copied the content of this text file in OS source code. So there's no comment on what's being done when X-codes are executed but it does work! Problem solved.

 

Benny, a nod on implementing the bank switch/IO stuff in this release. I am interested to see how control for these features integrate with the chip OS.

I have lots of versions of Xbox consoles sitting around, including a v1.1. I see you haven't tested with it yet (may be useful for TSOP related features).
This is the box I plan to put your chip into.

Provided I can find a couple LPC rebuild boards for all my v1.6a/bs lying around I can test on those too.

PS: where can we find LPC rebuild PCBs lately?

 

benny when you finish the work i wan to buy a couple of chips

 

Better late than never!

IMAG1103

IMAG1104


With right-angle headers and leads to LCD:
IMAG1102

How it looks when installed:
IMAG1100
Angle of picture make it looks like it sticks out a lot on the side of the motherboard but it's just 1-2mm in reality.

Made 3 prototypes, they all work just fine in 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.6b.
I did not test A15, TSOP split (A19) or GPI/O yet but I don't see why there would be any problem with those.

 

Benny Those Look AMAZING!

 

Looking fantastic Benny - really exciting to see some actual hardware coming together although well done also on the X-code extractor - I don't imagine there will be many that care (or even know!) that the coding is a bit rough around the edges - as you say, it is doing the job!

Just a quick question - will the final versions ship with a connector for the LCD or will we need to make our own arrangements?

Cheers, Mark

 

Looking nice im in for 2 for sure (depending on price and shipping, and if ppl buying my overstock of xboxes)

 

This thread never disappoints. Will be exciting when you actually start taking pre-orders. Is there a waiting list or something I can get my name on?

 

My wallet is open and waiting for you to take my money. I'm so happy you made them.

 

I agree with this 110%

 

DInt see them on my phone but now at work I can clearly see the lcd connector, its Through-hole close to the LPC bus connector.
I would soler a male connector and use some female cables towards any awesome lcd that speaks Hitachi HD44780 (the common 2x16 row character LCD)
now I never used one on my xbox before, but I definitely going to display some custom characters on them (somehow)
For example a XBox logo using 2x2 characters. http://www.8051projects.net/lcd-interfacing/lcd-custom-character.php

Are graphic LCDs supported or depending on the software we use? or are display instruction interpreted by the modchip? guess this last bit.. hmm.

Awesome project Benny keeping the scene alive "D

 

I will have one pleaseeeeee XD
But you know it.

 

I hope the price is right, because if so, I'll buy a couple of these.

 

Hi Mark,

I did ask myself what to do with the connector and I decided to not install it for a 2 reasons.
First of all, there is the cost of the part itself. 1x12 2.54mm headers are not so much expensive alone but adding such part on an assembled PCB can translate to an appreciable price increase on the finished product.
Second, not everyone will want a right-angled header(or a header at all) to connect a LCD. I figure some won't be installing a LCD at all. In these cases, installing a header from factory is wasted money to them.

I'm trying to make this thing cost as less as possible without dropping quality and reliability. I figure people won't be buying a $50+ Xbox1 modchip from a nobody (I'm no Team Xecuter and such). Reducing parts count, PCB size and drill hits on the PCB is important and directly affect the price.

At the moment, I am looking at a production run of about 250-300 units which would be sold $30-35USD(+shipping) each.

For everyone talking about pre-orders; it's a little too early. I've got to send beta units and finally select a PCBA service to initiate negociations on assembly and testing procedures. In the end, I want to receive a big box containing 250-300 individually sealed modchips I could just ship out to you guys. Programming and testing would be done in factory.

You can think of the LCD connector as a port with 6 digital outputs. Most comon graphic LCDs (based on KS0108) uses like 13-14 data lines. It could be possible to use IO expanders and interface them on the LCD port. I think at least Backlight and Contrast signals would work just like that.

I'll be working on documentation some time soon and it will include a table of LPC registers access for developers(like SmartXX team released).
For the time being, it's important to know that the LCD interface on XBlast works 90% like on SmartXX V2/OPX. The 10% left is the software-switched 5V rail and PWM resolution is 6 bits instead of 7(mapped to 6 higher bits of the 7 bits port of the SmartXX). So every Xbox program that supports SmartXX LCD supports XBlast LCD right now.