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So I've always been interested in a type of modified xbox 360 called a jtag. Apparently do to some system checks implemented by microsoft they can no longer connect to xbox live and I want to give building a new rebooter a try. First off, if anyone has any ideas on how to go about doing this or getting started, that would be awesome.

Secondly (this is my main question), what's PPC and how do I learn to "reverse engineer" it? I'm following this tutorial: http://www.thetechgame.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=1086504.html and I want to know how to go about doing it. I'm assuming I've done everything right so far, I've opened up the right files in IDA and I want to start in on it, but I don't really know how.

adamjford
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Jacob
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1 Answers1

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PPC (PowerPC) is a CPU architecture and instruction set, the reference to which you can find online. You mentioned JTAG, JTAG isn't a Xbox-specific technology, it's a common hardware debugging standard.

You sound like you've never done low-level development or reverse engineering, so I'm warning you that you may be way over your head. However, having said that, the following few points should get you started:

  • Xbox runs a CPU that's in PowerPC family of processors. They work by reading code from memory, and executing that code. PowerPC just refers to the format that code takes, what instructions are supported and describes its general behavior.
  • Since you're talking about JTAG, you might need to physically open your Xbox, find some JTAG tools and solder leads to it. You will probably break your Xbox.
  • Googling for "software reverse engineering" should get you started, but don't expect to learn this overnight as it's a very deep and technical topic.
yan
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