LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Anthony Symons <ant@sa.pracom.com.au>
  To  : <dmdeflui@subcorp.com.au>
  Date: 31 May 2002 16:28:16 +0930

RE: Linux on Xbox (or playstation)

Sony japan released the yaroze which was a similar home brew kit, but
with slightly limited librarys and slower code than the official dev
kit. They released yaroze only to the japanese market. Home brew gurus
then first came out with the ez-o-ray (read backwards) flash chip
replacement for the action replay to use the high speed link rather than
the default yaroze serial link. People also hacked the dongle off the
yaroze boot cd, and the whole scene flourished. Sony watched, but didnt
act. Some people even got hold of the official psyq development library
and compiler, while others used the yaroze one which was a mips gcc
cross compiler with libs. However, the ez-o-ray guys got a cease and
desist (I think they had something to do with the official yaroze, and
presumably breached and NDA). A better replacement was then released
called caelta, and sony continued to leave the scene alone. People still
use caetla this day. Despite all this sony then made linux the official
development platform for PS2, and came up with the linux kit as well, so
they seem to be legit, and taking it all quite well really. Its not a
short term thing since it stems back to yaroze useing gcc a few years
ago on ps1.....

Ant

On Fri, 2002-05-31 at 15:25, dmdeflui@subcorp.com.au wrote:
> If I were cynical, I'd think that Sony hired a bunch of open source Linux
> Pro geeks to write the playstations OS, and then decided as a money spin off
> to say they support open source and sell kits to let people access their own
> source code!!!!!
> 
> Regards,
> Dez
> 	-----Original Message-----
> 	From:	Thiele, Nicholas Wayne - THINW002
> [SMTP:THINW002@students.unisa.edu.au]
> 	Sent:	Friday, May 31, 2002 3:20 PM
> 	To:	'Dale Long'
> 	Cc:	Linux (E-mail)
> 	Subject:	RE: Linux on Xbox (or playstation)
> 
> 
> 	If this is true they could have thought of worse ways to further
> their market
> 	penetration!  
> 
> 	Looking at these sites
> 	-http://www.technology.scee.net/cgi-bin/scee/scee.pl?ps2linux,
> 	http://au.playstation.com/technology/linuxkit.jhtml I am optamistic
> and believe
> 	that they (Sony) do truely wish to encourage open source
> developement.  They
> 	seem to have really put some effort in to allowing full open source
> use of the
> 	PS2 hardware.  It also seems that there is no way that the kit can
> be used to
> 	facilitate piracy (is this what you were talking about impairing the
> market?).
> 	I am sure that they don't feel the developers (who the $500 kit is
> aimed at)
> 	represent a substantial market for propietry games.  Even if the
> kits did
> 	result in some top games (which would be great), Sony would either
> profit from
> 	increased development kit sales (which could be just as profitable
> as propietry
> 	games sales) or from sales of a port to the original system.
> 
> 	Either way they are promoting open source and providing some decent
> hardware to
> 	play with.
> 
> 	Good to hear your thoughts,
> 
> 	Nick
> 
> 
> 
> 	-----Original Message-----
> 	From: Dale Long [mailto:dalel@picknowl.com.au]
> 	Sent: Thursday, 30 May 2002 11:24 AM
> 	To: Thiele, Nicholas Wayne - THINW002
> 	Cc: Linux (E-mail); 'd_delyn@eml.cc'; Mark Wetton
> 	Subject: Re: Linux on Xbox (or playstation)
> 
> 
> 	Thiele, Nicholas Wayne - THINW002 wrote:
> 	> I agree, I'd also rather support a company that officially
> supports Linux and
> 	> show them that there is a market for this.  If you do (or anyone
> on the list)
> 	> get a Linux kit let us know how you find it, I am sure everyone
> will be
> 	> interested. 
> 
> 	Is it possible that Sony are only using 'the current perceived rage'
> 
> 	(ie: Linux) to further their 'grand scheme' and market penetration?
> And 
> 	then ultimately not honour the 'Linux spirit', by not allowing any 
> 	useful development for PS2 Linux? That is, using it as just a
> marketing 
> 	ploy with no real delivery. Ultimately, OSS games on Linux would 
> 	potentially impair the market for commercial DMCA copy protected 
> 	software. Is it possible to have both an open platform run in a
> useful 
> 	manner on the PS2 (or Xbox etc...) AND control the market and
> restrict 
> 	copying and piracy?
> 
> 	Just a few thoughts.
> 
> 	Dale.
> 
> 	> http://www.linuxworld.com.au/news.php3?nid=1451&tid=2 - Article
> about Linux
> 	PS2
> 	> kit in Australia.
> 	> 
> 	> PS. When I first brought up the subject of Linux on Playstation
> someone
> 	brought
> 	> up this interesting idea!
> 	> 
> 	> "*imagines an ISP running solely on PlayStation II's*"
> 	>  -David Lloyd [lloy0076@rebel.net.au]
> 	> 
> 	> -----Original Message-----
> 	> From: dcd [mailto:d_delyn@eml.cc]
> 	> Sent: Wednesday, 29 May 2002 17:36
> 	> To: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
> 	> Cc: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
> 	> Subject: Re: Linux on Xbox
> 	> 
> 	> 
> 	> I agree,
> 	> 
> 	>     I'd prefer to pay Sony, for the PS/2 who are prepared to
> officially 
> 	> support linux than Microsoft for another xbox to support their
> sales. ie 
> 	> Every sale to one side, is one less for the other.
> 	> Why else do you think their prepared to support a loss?
> 	> 
> 	> For someone who is into games and has a P/S already the $499 AU is
> a 
> 	> fairly cheap way of getting a  reasonable starting computer, the
> fact 
> 	> that they then start with linux, instead of having to be
> enlightened 
> 	> (substitute any other suitable word ),  is a major bonus in favour
> of this.
> 	> 
> 	> dcd
> 	> 
> 	> 
> 	> Anthony Symons wrote:
> 	> 
> 	> 
> 	>>On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 13:42, John Edwards wrote:
> 	>>
> 	>>
> 	>>>What's more interesting are some of the mod chips coming out for
> the
> 	>>>microsoft Xbox. It already has hard drive and Ethernet for
> something
> 	>>>like $399, and one of the xbox hacker groups has discovered a
> backdoor
> 	>>>bios hook to allow it to load arbitrary x86 code.
> 	>>>
> 	>>>In English, that means there's a strong possibility that it will
> be able
> 	>>>to run Linux, despite all the crypto requirements for booting the
> OS.
> 	>>>
> 	>>
> 	>>Hmm. Paying microsoft for hardware to run linux on? Even if it
> does save
> 	>>you money Im not sure if I like that idea :(
> 	>>
> 	>>Ant
> 	>>
> 	> 
> 	> 
> 	> 
> 	> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 	-- 
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-- 
Systems Administrator       
Pracom Ltd.             
+61 8 82029074 -=- +61 402 100 671 
anthony.symons@sa.pracom.com.au

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