VioletPixel

Justin Michael's notions and miscellanea

🎮 Porting Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii

Bryan Keller got the first version of Mac OS X (10.0, Cheetah) running on a Nintendo Wii:

Before figuring out how to tackle this project, I needed to know whether it would even be possible. According to a 2021 Reddit comment:

There is a zero percent chance of this ever happening.

Feeling encouraged, I started with the basics […]

Hell yeah. That’s a great attitude to have. And it paid off!

Something about seeing Mac OS X running on a Wii seems correct to me in a weird way. Whenever I saw Mac OS X running on other things, like a hackintosh, it always felt a little off, but the Wii and Mac OS X seem like kindrid spirits.

If you want to learn a lot about how old versions of Mac OS X or the Wii work, read Bryan’s entire post. If you want to skip all the technical details, I understand, but the last paragraph is a good reminder for everyone:

In the end, I learned (and accomplished) far more than I ever expected - and perhaps more importantly, I was reminded that the projects that seem just out of reach are exactly the ones worth pursuing.

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