I had planned to hack up an Xbox for a friend to give as a wedding present (what else does one give a geek who hasn’t registered for china and silverware). Of course, since we’d talked about it on and off for a year, he decided the week before he gets married is a good time to go out and buy one, leaving me having to shop for art or something.

Since he was placing an order for a chip to mod the machine, I had him order me another as well so I can put a second unit together to go either in the office or living room. I’m on the hunt for an LCD module to put in the unit as well, since it will likely go in a location without a TV on all the time. The Crystalfontz LCDs are nice, but I understand the PCB is a bit large, making installation troublesome. I’ve seen one hack where the author trimmed the board and connected traces with jumpers, but that would be a last resort for me. On the other hand, the LCDs that do fit tend not to have finished faceplates.