You’re so right about the “magic.” The way you jailbroke the PSP was just the coolest. You hacked the battery! I remember doing that for the first time and I felt like a hacker—my friends looked at me like I was one too—even though I was just following simple instructions.
20 ish years later, I wanna get my hands on some more consoles but wanna try hardware modding to learn how to solder too.
The battery? Was that the first discovered jailbreak hack? Because by the time I got a PSP (~2012), the jailbreak was “copy this program to your card and run it on the psp”, which was about as idiot-proof as a jailbreak can get.
On the other hand, I did jailbreak my nintendo switch with the shorting on the right joycon using a bent paperclip. Lucky I didn’t brick it, though until it booted back into life, I was sweating!
I can’t remember when exactly I did mine, but I think we called it the Pandora Battery method. I’m our right now but I need to look it up when I get home. It’ll be an awesome trip down memory lane.
I did it on mine and it was awesome. I told my brother I could do it for him, sliced the foil and started a lithium fire in the house. Threw the battery on a plate and carried it into the front yard while burning out.
I’d highly recommend modding an xbox 360 if you’ve never done so. Very achievable if you’re somewhat technical, and you get to feel all the hackerman vibes because it requires soldering some wire leads to the motherboard and using a raspberry pi pico to read and write the nand. Most original xbox games also work if you install the compatibility files. So many incredible games from the 360 generation, and the consoles can still be found for around $50. Just make sure you get a “slim” model console because the phats don’t live as long. This site has basically everything you need to know. It’s an extremely good resource.
RGH was the first mod I learned. Back then, you needed to use an ace v3 mod chip. Now with RGH 3, you only need a resistor and a diode for most models. I still prefer RGH because it persists between boots. Mod once and have a cracked console forever.
Honestly I mostly forgot that bad update was a thing while typing that comment. Back when I was still paying attention, you needed a specific game to make it work. Naturally, that game instantly became way more expensive on the resell market. Also the exploit used to take a few minutes to run, but I’m pretty sure that’s much shorter now.
If you have the game you need or it no longer requires a specific game, then I guess there’s no major reason to hard mod as long as you don’t mind running the exploit each time you power up the console. I haven’t done a mod in a few years now, but was planning to do another soon. I’ll probably look into bad update just to familiarize myself, but I imagine I’ll still do RGH 3 because it lets me set everything up, install all the games I want, customize the dashboard, make the menus pretty by getting all the full box art for every game, and then the console just stays that way forever and cleanly boots directly into the custom dashboard with virtually 100% success. I also prefer Freestyle Dash over Aurora which makes makes me somewhat unusual, but I very much prefer having separate categories for 360 games, original xbox games, xbla games, homebrew apps, and emulators (I could only ever find SNES so that’s all I have). Also I just really like customizing the look and feel with the Dream Theme installed on Freestyle. Scrub through that video to get an idea how crazy customizable Dream Theme is. Aurora has one look and one category with all games as far as I know, but most people go with it over Freestyle Dash.
All that to say, I mostly just enjoy doing an RGH mod because it’s fun. I mentioned how the whole process makes me feel like an actual hacker, and that first time you see the xell screen pop up (meaning the hack was a success), it’s worth it for the dopamine hit alone. Also these days if I’m modding a 360, I’m probably doing it for a friend and it’s much easier to give them something that requires no special knowledge to use.
Thank you for taking the time to write that out - those are all good reasons to go for a hard mod. I’m intrigued now, I will most likely pick up another 360 locally on the cheap to tinker with and go the easier route of A Bad Avatar with my “main system” until then. Dream Theme does look amazing and just having the console customized and ready to go right after booting (instead of having to run an exploit etc. every time) is a huge plus. It will be glorious.
No problem. I was concerned I went way overboard so I’m glad it’s helpful. Just be aware that if you also use Freestyle Dash, basically anyone who’s familiar with 360 modding will be like “…why are you using that?” It’s over a decade out of support. Aurora is much lighter and up to date, but I’m old school and I’m nostalgic for Dream Theme. The good news is if you want, you can configure Dashlaunch to have both. You just hold some button you choose on the controller while booting and it will boot into FSD, Aurora, or straight into xexmenu if you want. Before I settled into a preference, I put both FSD and Aurora on all the consoles I modded.
You’re so right about the “magic.” The way you jailbroke the PSP was just the coolest. You hacked the battery! I remember doing that for the first time and I felt like a hacker—my friends looked at me like I was one too—even though I was just following simple instructions.
20 ish years later, I wanna get my hands on some more consoles but wanna try hardware modding to learn how to solder too.
The battery? Was that the first discovered jailbreak hack? Because by the time I got a PSP (~2012), the jailbreak was “copy this program to your card and run it on the psp”, which was about as idiot-proof as a jailbreak can get.
On the other hand, I did jailbreak my nintendo switch with the shorting on the right joycon using a bent paperclip. Lucky I didn’t brick it, though until it booted back into life, I was sweating!
I can’t remember when exactly I did mine, but I think we called it the Pandora Battery method. I’m our right now but I need to look it up when I get home. It’ll be an awesome trip down memory lane.
I did it on mine and it was awesome. I told my brother I could do it for him, sliced the foil and started a lithium fire in the house. Threw the battery on a plate and carried it into the front yard while burning out.
You’re not a true tinkerer until you burn at least one house down.
I’d highly recommend modding an xbox 360 if you’ve never done so. Very achievable if you’re somewhat technical, and you get to feel all the hackerman vibes because it requires soldering some wire leads to the motherboard and using a raspberry pi pico to read and write the nand. Most original xbox games also work if you install the compatibility files. So many incredible games from the 360 generation, and the consoles can still be found for around $50. Just make sure you get a “slim” model console because the phats don’t live as long. This site has basically everything you need to know. It’s an extremely good resource.
I’m currently looking into hacking my 360 - why did you go with RGH and not A Bad Avatar/Bad Update?
RGH was the first mod I learned. Back then, you needed to use an ace v3 mod chip. Now with RGH 3, you only need a resistor and a diode for most models. I still prefer RGH because it persists between boots. Mod once and have a cracked console forever.
Honestly I mostly forgot that bad update was a thing while typing that comment. Back when I was still paying attention, you needed a specific game to make it work. Naturally, that game instantly became way more expensive on the resell market. Also the exploit used to take a few minutes to run, but I’m pretty sure that’s much shorter now.
If you have the game you need or it no longer requires a specific game, then I guess there’s no major reason to hard mod as long as you don’t mind running the exploit each time you power up the console. I haven’t done a mod in a few years now, but was planning to do another soon. I’ll probably look into bad update just to familiarize myself, but I imagine I’ll still do RGH 3 because it lets me set everything up, install all the games I want, customize the dashboard, make the menus pretty by getting all the full box art for every game, and then the console just stays that way forever and cleanly boots directly into the custom dashboard with virtually 100% success. I also prefer Freestyle Dash over Aurora which makes makes me somewhat unusual, but I very much prefer having separate categories for 360 games, original xbox games, xbla games, homebrew apps, and emulators (I could only ever find SNES so that’s all I have). Also I just really like customizing the look and feel with the Dream Theme installed on Freestyle. Scrub through that video to get an idea how crazy customizable Dream Theme is. Aurora has one look and one category with all games as far as I know, but most people go with it over Freestyle Dash.
All that to say, I mostly just enjoy doing an RGH mod because it’s fun. I mentioned how the whole process makes me feel like an actual hacker, and that first time you see the xell screen pop up (meaning the hack was a success), it’s worth it for the dopamine hit alone. Also these days if I’m modding a 360, I’m probably doing it for a friend and it’s much easier to give them something that requires no special knowledge to use.
Thank you for taking the time to write that out - those are all good reasons to go for a hard mod. I’m intrigued now, I will most likely pick up another 360 locally on the cheap to tinker with and go the easier route of A Bad Avatar with my “main system” until then. Dream Theme does look amazing and just having the console customized and ready to go right after booting (instead of having to run an exploit etc. every time) is a huge plus. It will be glorious.
No problem. I was concerned I went way overboard so I’m glad it’s helpful. Just be aware that if you also use Freestyle Dash, basically anyone who’s familiar with 360 modding will be like “…why are you using that?” It’s over a decade out of support. Aurora is much lighter and up to date, but I’m old school and I’m nostalgic for Dream Theme. The good news is if you want, you can configure Dashlaunch to have both. You just hold some button you choose on the controller while booting and it will boot into FSD, Aurora, or straight into xexmenu if you want. Before I settled into a preference, I put both FSD and Aurora on all the consoles I modded.
Ahh, unfortunately I sold my 360 as it laid there unused for years. I might buy one just to mess around with it.