Hacking the XM-PCR

Posted on September 11, 2003

I’ve written in this space before about my fondness for XM Satellite Radio’s nifty PC-based unit, the XM-PCR. What I didn’t know until today, though, was that there is an online community of XM-PCR geeks like myself, including a few who’ve gone so far as to write their own software to replace the (pretty crummy) software XM ships with the unit:

• UnleashPCR (Windows/.NET)
• ReplacePCR (Windows)
• AltPCR (Windows)
• MacXM (MacOS X)
• gxmpcr (Linux)

These programs do everything the basic software does, and some things it doesn’t, including let you minimize the program to the freaking system tray — a must-have for anything you’re gonna have running all day. Nice! I’ve gotta grab a few of these and check ’em out.