| From: | Matthew J Fletcher |
| Date: | 6 Aug 2000 at 11:58:34 |
| Subject: | RE: AMIOPEN: X-box developer specs |
Hi,..
This X-box (pc in a small box), just sounds silly i had a quick read and i
can cut the spcs to peices..
>  Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)
No use if they dont make versions for diffrent processors (i.e there will be no
win2000 for alpha)
>  FAT32 file system
Why not NTFS ?, i cant wait for the kinds reaction when there new X-box sits
there doing "scandisk has found drive errors that cannot be repaired".
> All code will execute in kernel mode (Ring 0).
Crrassh,... and burn baby..
>  Copy-protection support
Hum,.. i give them 2 months before craking pakages come out on the internet
and 6 months before you can get them commericaly.
> When the user turns on the console, the system software is decompressed out
> of read-only memory (ROM) into random access memory (RAM). Once in RAM, the
> system software initializes the hardware (DVD, audio, video, and so on).
Well thats 16mb of ram gone before you start, why they just dont run teh thing
out of rom is beyond me (we do it with out own os), ok so you need a bigger rom
but you dont get people hacking your code.
> After the hardware has been initialized, the system software will display
> the boot graphic and play the startup sound.
I wonder what that will be ?
> Supported media are CD, DVD, CD-RW, or DVD-R. There is no CD-R support.
Err, that just stupid how can you do CD-RW and not CD-R !!
> The Xbox game image format is not compatible with other executable systems,
> such as Windows 2000 executable format. The Xbox game image must be loaded
> by the Xbox system software application, loading utilities directly into RAM
> in 64-megabyte (MB) blocks.
wow 64mb, thats madness on a grand scale, so if you have a game that needs 65mb
of
ram you will need to have 128 installed to run it..
> Services from Windows 2000 not available in the Xbox system software
> include:
>  Plug and play
>  Hot docking
>  Power management
So kids will have to fiddle with IRQ values to get there light guns to work,
and then they will have to power the damn thing off to unplug them !!
> Game errors also
> are not handled by the Xbox Dashboard, but by the game software itself.
I wonder ... nope its ccrassh again...
regards,
---
Matthew J Fletcher amimjf@connectfree.co.uk
Serck Controls Ltd Programming from PIC to Java
www.amimjf.connectfree.co.uk ICQ amimjf 44193496
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