Dissecting the Xbox

A couple months ago, I won an old Xbox in a raffle (no, not a Xbox 360). I'm not much of a video game player, so I decided to take it apart. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The Xbox is is full of countless goodies just waiting to be extracted for use. Unfortunately, there is more to its armor than meets the eye.



For weeks I tried to break it open without damaging any components using household tools. Eventually, I had to come to terms with the fact that it would be impossible to open (without damage) using only your average toolbox. Of course, back then I didn't wield the Ultimate Tool: The Dremel.



Newly armed with a "power drill on steroids" and a plethora of add-ons I could now sand, drill, sharpen, and best of all: cut. I have an assortment of approximately 200 little tools to put at the end of my dremel. The most useful turned out to be the small but powerful diamond cutter, which I bought separately.

First, I gently pulled out the CD holder, which will someday make a beautiful robot chassis. You can already see two grooves at the back, perfect size for a set of geared motors.



Using my probe-like LED light, I peered into where the disc holder used to be. I was delighted to find that the laser diode was safe and comfortable, awaiting its inevitable extraction. Along with the diode, there are a few small motors used to move the laser module around.



So, I embarked on my quest of surgery, one step at a time.



The bottom left corner was giving me a lot of trouble, so I investigated to find the flaw in my plan. As it turns out, you cannot cut around the sides of an Xbox and lift it off like a can of tuna. There are about eight or so thick pegs connecting the roof with the rest of the body. Undoubtedly an attempt at thwarting hackers.



(Above) You can clearly see the holes in the plastic where a peg used to be, before I had to cut it out.

I managed to cut open the front portion just enough for me to peer through. I could then locate the peges, and mark their location. I would cut a bok around them, and then cut out a second box next to it. After the second box had been removed, I placed the blade into the gap and moved it toward the peg until I could slice it in half.

It was a very slow and extremely painful process (my back). Bit by bit, I carefully took off the top covering.



When I finished, I found this intact piece of sheet metal that could be useful for making bars to hold motors, housing mirocontrollers, etc.

When I finally finished I was left with this:



Now what?

Find out in Part II

BASIC Stamp vs. PIC/Picaxe Part II- Compatibility & Mac vs. PC

I made it clear earlier on where I stood in the on going war between the BASIC Stamp Family and the PIC. I would now like to address a point that is often overlooked- compatibility, something the BASIC Stamp 2 victoriously is in winning in. As the war between Mac and PC rages on, the microcontroller industry has been caught in the crossfire.

Those of you who know me, know of my mixed feelings about macs. I love them and hate them at the same time.

They are easy to use and clear, while on my PC I spent hours trying to transfer files from my PC onto a Flash Drive. Macs are more than just computers too, they are works of art, devices from the future, if you will. Their sleek design is matched only by Alienware, now owned by Dell. They are so easy to use I could accomplish much in a very short amount of time. All their software really works, and works well. Rarely do I run into a mac software that is dysfunctional. Meanwhile, the world of PC software is a minefield, with Trojan horses and viruses awaiting one false step.

One of my biggest complaints however, is the lack of computer programming languages available on Macs. The entire .NET framework will never be available to Apple, that fact is indisputable. How am I supposed to program robots, write simulations, and create interfaces on my mac? The answer to this question is getting better and better every year.

I can now freely write PYTHON code without using Parallels, which is like throwing a dice: 5 out of 6 times it "unexpectedly quits" before the first line of code can be written.





This is where the BASIC Stamp vs. PIC conflict comes in. BASIC Stamp has something else no PIC has: (Almost) Universal Compatibility. I can now do more than just write in PYTHON, I can program robots, machines, and more with single-chip computers! All this on the go, on my mac.

The only flaw I found was that a serial to USB converter was needed to load code onto the BS2. At Radioshack, the salesman handed me a converter costing a womping thirty dollars. I pointed out that on the back was a sign that said "For Windows 98 or later". I asked him if it would work on my mac. He paused, as if thinking about an astrophysics formula.

"Possibly..." he told me.

Unconvinced, I asked him, "Possibly?".

His "Possibly" turned into a "Probably" rather quickly.

Sure enough, it didn't work.

I need to now return it, and get the correct one from Amazon. Of course, I blame radioshack for this, not parallax.





Finally, there is something about the BASIC Stamp 2 editor that no other computer programming software has: it is aesthetically pleasing. That's a first compared to the other PC programs that only a mother would love.

BASIC Stamp vs. PIC/Picaxe

In engineering, there is often a large debate over which is better: The BASIC Stamp family or the PIC/Picaxe family. All over the Internet, there are heated debates over which is superior. at a site called "Let's Make Robots.com" the BASIC Stamp two module was under fire, and after reading some of their arguments I almost considered giving up on the BASIC Stamps. Until I read a response from a user called "robologist". I think he made the best argument for the BS Family:

"You can rag on stamps all day, but you aren't buying hardware with them. You are buying the software, the manuals, the carefully worked out way each pin can do what other pins do generally (16 pins of serial ?!?), a huge user base, and some folks that are generally helpful in getting a project done. There is no better, simpler solution for a beginner that has never programmed, never soldered, and wants to build and program their first micro, except possibly Lego Mindstorms (which has even fewer I/O).

I know PICs have the PICList, many programmers, development boards, and a good company in Microchip backing them, but can you seriously compare the scattered resources and possibly helpful / possibly conflicting information on PICs with something clearly put together like the Basic Stamp manual? Do you really think a beginner will know that setting particular register is necessary to allow certain functions to happen on a PIC, or whether that same beginner can use a Stamp and just read the pin or switch it with a simple instruction? Stamps aren't made for intermediate or even advanced users, they are for beginners and they've set themselves in that spot very well.

If comparing micros, I believe that AVRs are actually optimized for C programming (where for PICs it's a hack), operate at one instruction per clock cycle (compared to the PICs requirement for 4 cycles per instruction) and use a much better type of flash with greater cycle life. If going even further, there are the many ARM7 and now ARM9 processors, 32 bit to move out of that slow 8 bit world. How about a DSP or programming your own core into an FPGA? You see, it's easy to look back and whinge about how horrible a previous developmental step was, or you can see that it had it's place, that it was useful for what it was."

Of course, all of the PICs are much cheaper, so if cost is a stresser then stick with them, but I choose to stay with the BASIC Stamps for now, as I will be able to learn them better.

These first two images are from a BASIC Stamp kit I got. It was extremely well done, starting with simple projects, and then making them more and more advanced. The best way to start programing hardware.






These images show the axe023 module, which is an 8 pin that I got for $15 including the board. I brought two of them, one came defected and the other was a pain in the rear-end as it's voltage regulations wouldn't tolerate 9v. Its Datasheet (user Manuel) was very poorly done leaving me confused and hopeless.









For the record the faulty Picaxe was not due to voltage, I was actually having more problems with the board than the chip. And yes, there is a difference between PIC and PICAXE, however I chose not to focus too much on that when I wrote this. Apparently many people feel very strongly about the topic of microcontrollers, however I based this post primarily off of my own experiences with multiple different microcontrollers, and so obviously the user experience may vary.

Better Domain

As of today, BW Science Labs has a new domain for the next 365 days. No longer do you need to type in the long "sciencelabs.blogspot.com", instead, you can now use "bwsciencelabs.com"!

Becoming official

Hi,

I've been trying to get more posts up, and in the past few days I've been preparing several great ones. However, on my desktop PC the internet has shut down. Thus, I cannot mail myself any of the images I've collected, and I'm trying to get all my other images in order.

I've spent all of today working on the intro for all of the future BWSL videos. I think its been worth the time.

Audio Encryption

You can think of this as a part II in manipulating audio, after the post: "Audio Analysis".

Go ahead and open up Audacity. Record what ever you want, I put in "Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3."



Above is my untouched test.

Now, go to the toolbar and select "Effect". To make it easy to decrypt, reverse it. It would be unclear what is being said, and can be fixed easily.






Be careful when encrypting, so that you can decrypt it without trouble.

You can overlay other sounds like a "Phaser" or a "Wahwah" confusing the listener.

The great thing about Audacity is how simple it is. You can encrypt audio very easily.

After messing with it for a couple minutes, this is how it looks:

Water on Mars!

NASA's Phoenix lander just found water on Mars, a huge step forward for NASA. The water was found in solid form (ice) in tiny chunks that would evaporate into gas.

This will hopefully stimulate more funding and exploration into NASA's space program.

See the CBS piece written here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/31/tech/main4312431.shtml