Xbox Applications?

naw · Post by **naw** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:41 pm

Hi, I just bought a couple of these for my kids to act not only as Games Consoles, but also as HIFI / DVD players. Overall buying an XBox for Â£99 saves me probably Â£20 - Â£30 and the kids get a neat toy each for Xmas.

I also bought some games (2 copies of a road-racing game so they can go head to head), so I'll have to do a bit of hidden cabling as well now.

So, I'm curious about its capabilities. I played CDs & DVDs and sound / vide re-production is really very good. But I'm surprised at the lack of software for them. Sure there's lots of games and they're all very good, but I had kind of expected a wealth of *other* stuff to be out there on the net but, well it appearsa to be just games / Linux and a project to reverse engineer the MS XDK. I found source for a project called XBMP / XBMC - but due to licencing probs, they cant provide binaries...

+ WWW Browser (with strong parental control, obviously)
+ mini / simple Word Processor for their homework with network printing
+ paint / illustration package
+ decent Music / MP3 Library SW (like MusicMatch Jukebox)
(I DJ off my laptop, but an XBox would be a good low cost alternative)

So am I right, is there no WWW Browser / mini WP / paint / MP3 SW out there?

I'm sure that MS dont want to provide such SW (because it hurts their PC monopoly) and as I understand it, any XBOX SW has to be authorised by MS & you have to purchase an XDK (XBox equiv of Win SDK) for several thousand dollars. But many/most XBOX's are chipped to allow pirated SW to be used.

Doesnt this seem like a great opportunity for PB & the PB Community. I believe the XBOX OS is based on the W2K Kernel. So I assume PB *could* be ported. I guess there would be no gadget support & any SW written could only be used on Chipped XBOX's.

Of course there is Linux for the XBOX, but for me (and I suspect the majority of people) what they want is a games console with a few extras - not a cheap Linux Desktop.

Codemonger · Post by **Codemonger** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:27 pm

Thought of getting into the same thing, but it seemed like a lot of trouble to emulate a PC. I think NVidia and a Japanese company are coming out with a console system next year that has linux OS and OpenGl for graphics. I imagine this will be much more portable for adding your own software.

I use XBox just for games, Halo 2 in particular. Just played it this morning, and it is awesome. Halo party Friday night at a friends house, should be fun, about 12 people all together (mostly adults). Lots of cursing, drinking and kicking a$$.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:38 pm

I *just* picked up my copy

PB · Post by PB » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:41 pm

> I'm curious about its capabilities

A modded Xbox's possibilities are just about endless.

Just yesterday I downloaded Quake2 for the Xbox, and it's fantastic! It's
a bit tricky using the gamepad instead of mouse+keyboard, but I hear
you can get USB mice for the Xbox, so I'm going to look into that.

As you said, there's not really much native Xbox software out there, but
this is where emulators save the day. I play arcade, Amiga, C64, and
Atari 2600 games on my Xbox on a regular basis. Sure, they're not all
flash and l33t 3D graphics etc, but they're much more fun to play!

As a side-note, I did also download a PlayStation1 emulator yesterday,
but I don't have any discs to test it with. Looks like I'll have to go rent
some.

If it works, then imagine that: a combined Xbox/PS1 machine!

> I found source for a project called XBMP / XBMC - but due to licencing
> probs, they cant provide binaries...

That's what file-sharing networks are for, and how I got Quake2.

> WWW Browser (with strong parental control, obviously)

There is at least one WWW browser for the Xbox, but I can't recall its
name at the moment. (I saw it but wasn't interested).

> mini / simple Word Processor for their homework with network printing

At the end of the day it's a game console with a gamepad, not a PC with
keyboard. Word processing apps, while probably non-existent, are not
what you'd use a game console for. You have to be realistic.

> decent Music / MP3 Library SW (like MusicMatch Jukebox)

Xbox Media Player is perfect for this -- I use it all the time.

> I assume PB *could* be ported

Probably not easily. Yes, the Xbox is a stripped-down W2K box, but the
OS is (apparently) entirely different. And when you consider that you
need to buy a license to (legally) code for it, I doubt Fred would want
to pay it. So don't hold your breath.

Codemonger · Post by **Codemonger** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:30 pm

Has anyone tried this program :

http://www.xbconnect.com/

and does it work good ?

Moonshine · Post by **Moonshine** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:50 am

I believe a friend of mine tried that and managed to play Halo online with no XBox live or anything...I think, Im not sure...

PolyVector · Post by **PolyVector** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 3:05 am

I used xbconnect w/ halo all the time last year... it worked great for me...

PB · Post by PB » Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:08 am

> That's what file-sharing networks are for, and how I got Quake2.

I just want to clarify my statement above: I do own Quake2 for the PC, so
my downloading it to play on my Xbox was NOT an illegal action. Further,
the version I downloaded for the Xbox is the Shareware version... and all
I did was replace the shareware pak0 file with the commercial pak0 from
my original Quake2 CD, thus turning it into the full commercial version.

naw · Post by **naw** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 4:00 pm

As you said, there's not really much native Xbox software out there, but
this is where emulators save the day. I play arcade, Amiga, C64, and
Atari 2600 games on my Xbox on a regular basis. Sure, they're not all
flash and l33t 3D graphics etc, but they're much more fun to play!

Aha! then this is perhaps where I get my Apps from. I get an amulator (probably Amiga) then load some old Amiga Apps (perhaps even Purebasic) Haha!

There is at least one WWW browser for the Xbox, but I can't recall its
name at the moment. (I saw it but wasn't interested).

Yes, I've seen it ported from XLINK (or something like that) it seemed quite basic.

At the end of the day it's a game console with a gamepad, not a PC with
keyboard. Word processing apps, while probably non-existent, are not
what you'd use a game console for. You have to be realistic.

Am I being any more unrealistic than someone who uses a PC to play games? Remember, these consoles are for my kids to play games on and I'd like to give them a facility to do their homework too - The xbox is very capable of doing that, its just that the SW doesnt exist.

> decent Music / MP3 Library SW (like MusicMatch Jukebox)
Xbox Media Player is perfect for this -- I use it all the time.

Yes, but I suspect your using it in the same way as you would use a rgular CD player. I thought the standard Player seemed very limited, no facility to simply copy a CD full of 250 MP3s (each track has to be individually ripped from a n Audio CD) then the tracks only seem to be available by Album. What I hoped for was to be able to DJ from a huge playlist, making minor alterations.

Probably not easily. Yes, the Xbox is a stripped-down W2K box, but the
OS is (apparently) entirely different. And when you consider that you
need to buy a license to (legally) code for it, I doubt Fred would want
to pay it. So don't hold your breath.

I guess so

naw · Post by **naw** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 4:16 pm

PB wrote: Just yesterday I downloaded Quake2 for the Xbox, and it's fantastic! It's
a bit tricky using the gamepad instead of mouse+keyboard, but I hear
you can get USB mice for the Xbox, so I'm going to look into that.

Check this out for Mouse & Keyboard:

http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?products_id=5438

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/6918/Play ... oard-Mouse

Codemonger · Post by **Codemonger** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 4:58 pm

It's about time ... I've played the new starwars game on XBox and I have it for PC, huge difference. It's exactly the same game but the resolution of the mouse and keyboard give you soo much more control that a wobbley joystick. Getting headshots with Halo 2 would be a breeze. Thanks for the tip naw

PB · Post by PB » Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:35 pm

> Am I being any more unrealistic than someone who uses a PC to play games?

Well... yes, because the Xbox doesn't have a keyboard and only has a
small 640x480 display... so how do you intend to do any serious word
processing with it? 8O

Besides, the PC is a games machine, isn't it?

> Yes, but I suspect your using it in the same way as you would use a
> rgular CD player. I thought the standard Player seemed very limited

Xbox Media Player is far superior to the Xbox's native CD player. As you
said, I haven't used it for DJ'ing or anything, but you can check out its
capabilities here: http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/info_project.htm

naw · Post by **naw** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 1:32 pm

@PB

Sure - but there are plenty of keyboards available & they dont cost much, just like there are plenty of Joysticks around for PCs.

Remember this is for my 9 & 10yr old kids to do a bit of typing for their homework for maybe an hour or so per week and print it via my PC - that all

(anything to keep them off my PC)

Of course - you're right, its not an office machine replacement.

Apols - I thought you were talking about the std xbox player.

XBMP / XBMC does seem to be the answer but its only available as source - I would need to get a copy of the XDK to compile it :-\

PB · Post by PB » Thu Nov 11, 2004 2:02 pm

> XBMP / XBMC does seem to be the answer but its only available as source

Quake2 is only available as source too... unless you use a file-share app to
get the compiled Xbox executable.

Just do the same for XBMP/XBMC.

naw · Post by **naw** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 2:52 pm

ok - I'll do that! Thanks Paul

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