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Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 source code leaks online

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Re: Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 source code leaks online

#51

Post by temac »

klodolph wrote: post #35
temac wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Xbox OS isn't "a custom version of Windows 2000". They took the networking stack and a couple other bits from NT, but otherwise it was built from scratch. From the whole Win2k obviously not, and it is common for journalists to not be very precise, but at least the kernel seems to have tons of architectural similarities with the NT kernel, and I would not be surprised if it was a derivative? https://xboxdevwiki.…

The scheduler is radically different and that has knock-on effects on the rest of the OS. The OS gets a fixed time slice every frame before control is handed back to the game. The security model is engineered to distrust the user of the device as an anti-piracy measure. It might be a derivative, but calling at a “custom version of Windows 2000” is absolutely wrong.

There are also custom scheduling policies in the XBox One IIUC. I agree that a “custom version of Windows 2000” for the original XBox is wrong, but it is not extremely consequential in this article, I can see where it comes from, and I don't think its erroneous enough for it to be a big deal to be presented like that to the public; only experts will find the distinction interesting.

Saying it is a custom version of Mac OS, I would call it absolutely wrong. Here, just wrong is enough :p

Re: Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 source code leaks online

#53

Post by thiagocesar »

deelowe wrote: post #40
thiagocesar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft already has a pretty sophisticated Xbox emulator, deployed to both Xbox360 and XboxOne.

Is it actually an emulator or something more akin to WINE?

Considering Xbox360 used a PowerPC CPU, some emulation had to be done.

Not sure about the Xbox One - it might be just a different aspect on the hypervisor.

Re: Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 source code leaks online

#54

Post by thiagocesar »

caseyjones29142 wrote: post #21
als0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that they whitelisted such a small selection of titles (on 360).

I think that's more of a licensing things really. Some of those old games had really wierd diels especially for music rights.

That’s the reason why some games keep going in and out of Steam. Especially console ports such as Alan Wake.

Re: Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 source code leaks online

#55

Post by win35nt »

I'd love to try and have a go at compiling the NT3.5 source. What tools would I need? There are Makefiles and things in the archive, but having installed MS Visual C++ 6.0 in a Windows 2000 virtual machine, it still seems to be lacking commands like "build" and "nmake" which are referenced in these files... Does anyone have pointers?

Re: Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 source code leaks online

#56

Post by blattimwind »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #50
csharptwdec19 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minesweeper from the Microsoft store is bigger than a standard Win98 install. :)

The original Xbox had 64MB of RAM, with no dedicated graphics memory. The Microsoft Teams chat application uses 200MB to 550MB of RAM when idle. My all-time favourite example of high-density software is Super Mario 64, which weighs in at 8MB.

.kkrieger is a full 3D shooter in just 96K (needs slightly more than 96K of memory to run)

Re: Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 source code leaks online

#57

Post by MaxBarraclough »

blattimwind wrote: post #56
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Xbox had 64MB of RAM, with no dedicated graphics memory. The Microsoft Teams chat application uses 200MB to 550MB of RAM when idle. My all-time favourite example of high-density software is Super Mario 64, which weighs in at 8MB.

.kkrieger is a full 3D shooter in just 96K (needs slightly more than 96K of memory to run)

That's a good example from the demoscene, but that was done as a tech demo, rather than as a serious commercial product. To illustrate the bloat of modern software, I think it's better to point to examples of highly compact 'real' software.

Of course, a great deal of effort must have gone into squeezing it down to 8MB, and it wouldn't be reasonable to ask modern developers to go to those lengths, but still.

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