- A programmer managed to run an old version of macOS on a Nintendo Wii
- The project involved a lot of custom code and complex workarounds.
- Despite the difficulties, the author said it was “worth it to keep going.”
Forget asking if your PC can work crisisThe ultimate test of computing capabilities these days is whether you can hack a working copy of Condemn on a random piece of electrical equipment. But maybe we should add a new test of hacking prowess: can you run Mac OS X Cheetah on a Nintendo Wii?
That’s exactly what programmer Bryan Keller accomplished, and the enterprising coder detailed the sometimes complicated process on his blog. And as you can imagine, getting an operating system that was discontinued almost 25 years ago to run on a gaming console that’s not much younger presented its fair share of obstacles.
Keller was inspired by seeing a similar project that managed to run Windows NT on a Nintendo Wii. And considering that the Wii uses a PowerPC 750CL processor, which is an updated version of the PowerPC 750CXe found in Apple’s older iMac G3 and iBook G3 computers, Keller had a feeling his hacking attempt would work. It turned out to be a correct hunch.
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However, that doesn’t mean it was a walk in the park. Keller had to create a custom bootloader, patch the OS X kernel source code, put together a modified kernel binary, and even write his own drivers that allowed the kernel to read from the Wii’s SD card slot to boot properly. In other words, the process was as hands-on as possible.
‘It’s worth continuing’
Even after all that effort, Keller still encountered some unusual problems. One, for example, caused the device to display Mac OS X in incorrect colors. As Keller succinctly put it, “everything is magenta.”
Fixing this was complicated, Keller said, because “it relates to a fundamental incompatibility between the Wii’s video hardware and the graphics code used by Mac OS X.” The solution was to use two framebuffers, one for Mac OS X Cheetah and one for Wii, and convert the output of one into something the other could understand.
It was just one of the many problems Keller (unsurprisingly) found with this unusual hack. But despite the problems, the effort was a success, with Mac OS X Cheetah (released in 2001) fully operational on the Nintendo Wii (first released in 2006). Keller has posted the source code on GitHub for anyone brave enough to take on the challenge themselves.
Reflecting on the project, Keller said, “There is something deeply satisfying about accomplishing something that, at first, you weren’t even sure was possible… In the end, I learned (and accomplished) much more than I expected and, perhaps most importantly, I remembered that the projects that seem out of reach are exactly the ones worth pursuing.”
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