Question Of The Week [January 20th 2025]

Q: What Is Your Favorite BIOS/Startup Screen?

A: My favorite BIOS/Startup screen would be the original Xbox startup or known as "The Blob". It's weird and reminds me of the Robin Williams movie Flubber... but I actually never saw that movie. It just looks like the weird green amorphous blob in a weird but kinda cool way.

The real reason I love it is because it reminds me of getting really into hacking and modding back in the early days of that console. I just graduated high school and the Xbox was still hot. I drove to the store and picked up the system and tore open the package and was greeted with the BIOS for the first time. As the months went by, I got my modchip, soldered it in and started messing around with code and dashboards and learning how to make the system do various things. As the years went by, there were many hacks that allowed me to tweak and change the Bios, adding new words, sounds and even colors to that instantly weird but fun bios start screen.

Once I started making a living off of modding Xbox consoles (adding a massive 300GB for the time it was a massive Hard Drive with many games and emulators) I ended up tweaking that bios to reflect the customer's favorite color and other things like their name. It was a blast. I love and miss great startup sounds and screens!