Dean Takahashi: Microsoft's Project Helium

[kabacha]

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/05/an_investigativ.html

I've got a copy of an email about a project called Helium at Microsoft. The email came out a couple of years ago and it apparently describes an attempt to put Windows on the Xbox 360.

I hear from my sources that this was the third SKU, the version of the Xbox 360 that ran Windows. It is the ultimate Trojan Horse in that respect.

They reportedly canceled Helium. I hear that it was an idea they tried out to please Bill Gates' curiosity, but it never panned out. But I don't know that for sure.

 

[Tap In]

already posted

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=763032&postcount=37

 

[Urian]

Windows on PowerPC?

Is clear that the idea died when Xenon was accepted as the CPU.

 

[MrWibble]

Windows on PowerPC?

Is clear that the idea died when Xenon was accepted as the CPU.

Why? Windows *used* to run on PPC... that's one of the reasons MS were able to get a compiler into service quickly.

Mac OS-X now runs on Intel, why shouldn't Windows work on PPC?

 

[Magnum PI]

Windows NT 3.1 ran on Intel IA-32 x86, DEC Alpha, and MIPS R4000 processors. Windows NT 3.51 added support for PowerPC processors. Intergraph Corporation ported Windows NT to its Clipper architecture and later SPARC, but neither version was sold to the public. Windows NT 4.0 was the last major release to support Alpha, MIPS, or PowerPC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

 

[Dave Baumann]

The XBOX 360 G5 based Developer Kits were also suposed to be running Windows.

 

[Urian]

Why? Windows *used* to run on PPC... that's one of the reasons MS were able to get a compiler into service quickly.

Mac OS-X now runs on Intel, why shouldn't Windows work on PPC?

The last time that Windows ran on PowerPC was NT 4.0 beta version and it was 11 years ago.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Which only means they'd need to rewrite the OS, not that it would never run as some people suggest. In other words, Windows on XB360 would be perfectly possible.

Perhaps one reason not to go with that is Vista. Would they include Vista, not finished yet, and doesn't it need more resources than XB360 has to offer(?), or XP that becomes outdated?

 

[Urian]

Which only means they'd need to rewrite the OS, not that it would never run as some people suggest. In other words, Windows on XB360 would be perfectly possible.

Perhaps one reason not to go with that is Vista. Would they include Vista, not finished yet, and doesn't it need more resources than XB360 has to offer(?), or XP that becomes outdated?

I remember an article that said that the people of Connectix (VirtualPC for Mac) where bought by Microsoft for the emulation of Xbox games in 360.

Perhaps the development kits are Darwin+An special version of Virtual PC (without GUI since Darwin alone doesn´t have one)+Windows XP in the top+Visual Studio with PPC 64 bits compilers on it.

 

[EndR]

Hmmm...
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22316&highlight=360PC

I wasn´t that far off then..

 

[aaaaa00]

The last time that Windows ran on PowerPC was NT 4.0 beta version and it was 11 years ago.

Reactivating the PowerPC port would probably be easier than maintaining the current Itanium port.