XBox MAME
I've recently got into hacking my old XBox game console (essentially a Celeron 733 with 64MB RAM, DVD, and 8GB HDD). Well, this is a freaking HUGE universe with tons of mod options (chips, cases, controllers, etc.). It also has a great support cummunity: XBox-HQ, XBox Scene, XBMC, and The MOD Chip.

One of the coolest things I've found, is that once hacked, you can pretty much run all sorts of stuff, from Linux and music/DVD/MOV/AVI/WMV players to custom older console emulators. Namely, MAME, and Nintendo 64. Now, There is also the cool aspect that an xbox controller, while it has proprietary connectors, is essentially just a USB device. Well, that has allowed a couple add-on developers to create a PS2 mouse/keyboard plug adapter (and there are plenty of USB to XBox adapters as well) that will work in Linux. The SmartJoy FRAG adapter is the first/best out there. I'm not sure if you can bring a PS2 keyhack (or hagstrom controller) into this PS2 adapter and have all the normal PC keys recognized for use as a control panel interface, but it seems reasonable.

Some of the MAME roms are a bit much for the XBox hardware to run at reasonable speeds, but it is pretty cool (and about as cheap as you can get for a MAME PC).
- posted by Jeff @ 7:53 PM | 0 comments