Moding a Neo Geo CD to Regionless.

basically... off the top of my head, you could mod the original XBox consoles pretty much three ways... softmod, TSOP, modchip. I used the hotswap method (basically a softmod) to get the files onto the hard drive (NOTE: there is supposedly some risk to the hardware with the 'hotswap' since your physically removing the IDE cable while the XBox/PC is powered on etc. but I never had a issue with it when using a old computer I had). but I believe you basically needed to do the softmod in order to flash the XBox consoles TSOP thing so at that point it works like a actual modchip without a actual modchip being installed. I still have five original XBox consoles collecting dust but they are all moded which are pretty much all of them are TSOP but I think two have a modchip in it. from memory... I think all original XBox consoles can be TSOP'ed besides I think it was v1.6 which is not flashable. but all previous XBox consoles can be flashed (i.e. v1.0-1.5 consoles). so odds are most people wanting to TSOP their original XBox can do it (and, from memory, you just have to bridge a small solder joint on the motherboard together so you can gain write access to the motherboards BIOS to overwrite the original with a moded one so it can do all of the fancy stuff. NOTE: there is some risk flashing the onboard BIOS as if it fails you can brick (as in pretty much permanently kill it) your console. but I never had a problem.). even out of the five XBox consoles I still have, only one is a v1.6 which I put a modchip in that. either way, regardless of which XBox console version you have, all can be softmoded and still gives you all of the benefits (playing games from hard drive, emulators, XBMC etc), it's just TSOP or modchip is preferred since it's easier to fix if something acts up etc.

I even messed with the XBox360 moding stuff to with flashing the DVD-ROM drive firmware. but after that console I never bothered with anything more recent. I first moded a original XBox console in I think it was about August of 2004 (which I put a Xecuter 2.3B Pro modchip in it (this was before I learned about softmod/TSOP stuff which I learned at a later date)) which I got in a trade with my cousin for a Gamecube console. like only reason he traded it was because the DVD-ROM drive in the XBox console was pretty much shot, I knew this before we traded, but I was confident I could mod it and once I did, it would be far better than the Gamecube was for me at the time and it was easily worth it ; but after I moded mine it was not long after he got another XBox and so did his brother etc and I moded those as in my I put a 80GB IDE hard drive in mine and my cousin put in a 160GB hard drive etc.

but anyways... I noticed soldering works a bit better with that 'solder flux' stuff as it helps clean and make the solder flow a bit better as I noticed it made a big difference when I soldered one of those 'solder pin header' things into the motherboard on the XBox console for a modchip connection as prior to using that, it was probably not going to work as it just would not flow right to get a good bond with the motherboard to pin header.

so anyone wanting to mod a original XBox console (or maybe some XBox360's) I can probably help there (although I would have to likely do some research again to get back up to speed as I remember some of it but not all of the details off the top of my head). also, I learned Wii moding about a year ago as that's pretty easy as all you need is a SD memory card and a external hard drive (preferably a 2.5" one so the Wii powers it by itself). I would have done the Wii back in the day but years ago when it was more popular I just never cared enough to get a Wii console but nowadays they are cheap enough and you can load up plenty of games onto say a 250GB hard drive etc and from a fancy Wii like menu (i.e. 'USBLoaderGX' program) you can select which game you want to play and that's that (NOTE: I still need to finish up the Scarface Wii game which I was playing a while ago but I need to get back to finishing it)

p.s. one thing back-in-the-day I was surprised worked was running Sega Dreamcast games from a CD-R worked straight up without any system modifications on the Dreamcast console I had. I doubt any other console worked like that straight up. I still have this console but it collects dust.

onethreetwo

It's not that hard, especially stuff like the original Wii since no hardware modifications are required (even the original XBox is not too difficult (but not what I would call easy) as that one offers plenty of benefits from moding it which makes it worth doing if you got a original XBox console)

I find those who actually hack the consoles to be like hieroglyphics to me, since it's coding etc which I know nothing about, but reaping the benefits of the moding is doable for the average-ish person, especially something like the Wii which requires no soldering to do as all you basically need is a SD card (one that the Wii can read from(which should be most smaller SD cards etc)) and a external hard drive you can connect to it, pretty much. here is what I am using to connect some 2.5" hard drives I have to the Wii console... www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-USB-Cable-USB3S2SAT3CB/dp/B00HJZJI84/ ; basically with that (which is easy to use) you should be able to use just about any standard 2.5" SATA hard drive on the Wii. currently I have a 250GB hard drive connected but I tried some 80GB and 160GB hard drives I have and they are fine to. but I did change the hard drive format from NTFS back to FAT32 as the Wii tends to like FAT32 more than NTFS in general. FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit so any Wii games larger than 4GB have to be split into a couple of smaller files but the good news is a high percentage of Wii games are smaller than 4GB so you generally ain't got to worry about it.