excellent thanks for all the info and the extensive answers!!!
So, I got some news. My xbox arrived last night! It came much faster than expected, and it was quite a pleasant surprise. It turns out it was made in mid 2005, so it is at least a version 1.6. I have been having some second thoughts about soldering, and, although I haven't decided yet, I am leaning towards haveing it professionally installed. I guess it is sort of like paying 40 euros for insurance, which isn't too bad.
I do not plan on playing xbox live, so that will not be a factor for me. I currently have tons of fujifilm dvd-rs. They have been the best ones to play movies on my laptop, and they are not a cheap brand like Prince, so I do not think that will be a problem. I will stick with the evox dash as you mentioned for a while then, until I get the feel for it. Ok, so as far as the emulators go, with a stock hdd, I should be able to put in several roms of different emulators shouldn't I? They seem to not take up to much space. So basically, I would be alright if I only used the stock HDD for emulators/roms, and a dash or two? I plan on streaming movies and music from my laptop via WiFi, and then to play backup games, I can just use dvds. Do you think this sounds possible?
That's pretty much it. If I decide to get the chip soldered professionally, I will get in done early this week and let you know how it went. However, if I plan on soldering it, I'll probably take a few weeks. That also makes me lean towards getting it installed so I can mess around with it already!!!!
Take it easy, and I will be back to let you know how it all went.