A nerd through and through, I quite like hardware modding too, and I’m fierce with a soldering iron in my hand. Here’s some mods and paint jobs I’ve done in the past.
Back around 2004 I became interested in modifying my Xbox console. Reasons were numerous, but the homebrew scene on the original Xbox was a big draw. In particular, since I’m a big Halo fan, some of the mod tools that existed for the earlier games were interesting… I remember being able to swap weapons abilities and skins, so a pistol would shoot rockets etc.
I bought a Xenium ICE mod chip (solderless pogo pin adapter installation) and installed it. If memory serves, I ran the popular EvoX BIOS from the chip and booted directly in to Xbox Media Center (yes, I used XBMC when it was only for the Xbox.)
As well as the chip, I decorated the case as well. The “X” on the top of the console got painted gold, and a small, simple custom PCB I got etched in my Electronics class which powered 10 blue LEDs. Those LED’s formed a ring around the “jewel” in the center of the consoles lid and chased around in a circle, and could be turned on/off using a switch fitted to the rear.
I’ve recently modded another original Xbox, but it needs a little TLC to be pretty enough for pictures, so maybe I’ll post about that sometime soon. For now, pictures of my original Xbox…
Moving on, around 2007 I decorated my nearly-new Xbox 360. I was able to do it without opening the console (and thus, voiding the warranty) which was handy, and I painted up the controllers too. The machine has since red ringed and been repaired in Frankfurt and still looks as good as the pictures – the controllers… well they take more of a beating and as a result the paint of one is badly peeled, but the other is in decent shape.
