Dustin Holden - MakeMHz's banner

Dustin Holden - MakeMHz

@LoveMHz • 3,297 subscribers

Software and hardware developer. Owner of @MakeMHz LLC. ESL. Convicted hacker turned security researcher.

Shorts

After 25 years, the original Xbox's last hidden ROM has finally been dumped: the CPU's microcode! This has been a goal of mine for over 6 years, and I've worked on it off and on ever since. Over the last couple of weeks, while building inventory and shipping orders, I've also been running hardware tests 24/7. This poor Xbox has rebooted over 50,000 times in those two weeks alone. And it finally paid off. The dump covers the entire 4,096-line microcode address space. The ROM itself occupies 3,200 of those lines, roughly 12 KB of microcode. I can't overstate how huge this feels. After all these years, I finally have it. A full write-up is coming next year!

After 25 years, the original Xbox's last hidden ROM has finally been dumped: the CPU's microcode! This has been a goal of mine for over 6 years, and I've worked on it off and on ever since. Over the last couple of weeks, while building inventory and shipping orders, I've also been running hardware tests 24/7. This poor Xbox has rebooted over 50,000 times in those two weeks alone. And it finally paid off. The dump covers the entire 4,096-line microcode address space. The ROM itself occupies 3,200 of those lines, roughly 12 KB of microcode. I can't overstate how huge this feels. After all these years, I finally have it. A full write-up is coming next year!

115,598 views