‘Everything is magenta’: This wild hack got Mac OS X Cheetah working on a Nintendo Wii, and I can’t quite believe it | Tech Radar

Overview

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest smartphones

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

Details

Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.

‘Everything is magenta’: This wild hack got Mac OS X Cheetah working on a Nintendo Wii, and I can’t quite believe it

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Unlock instant access to exclusive member features.

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.

One coder got an ancient version of mac OS running on a Nintendo Wii

The project involved a mass of custom code and complex workarounds

Despite the difficulties, the author said it was ‘worth pursuing’

Forget asking whether your PC can run Crysis, the ultimate test of computing capabilities these days is whether you can hack a working copy of Doom onto a random piece of electrical equipment. But perhaps 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 managed, with the enterprising coder detailing the at-times convoluted process on their blog. And as you’d imagine, getting an operating system that was discontinued almost 25 years ago to run on a games console that’s not much younger presented more than its fair share of hurdles.

Keller was inspired by seeing a similar project that managed to get Windows NT running on a Nintendo Wii. And considering the Wii uses a Power PC 750CL processor — which is an updated version of the Power PC 750CXe found in Apple’s old i Mac G3 and i Book G3 computers — Keller had an inkling that his attempted hack would work. It proved to be a hunch that was right on the money.

I went back 50 years and played the best Apple-1 games

I was so sick of Windows 11, I panic-bought an M4 Mac mini ahead of the RAM crisis — and I'm totally converted

Someone tested the Mac Book Neo’s gaming performance with surprising results

That doesn’t mean it was a walk in the park, though. Keller had to build a custom bootloader, patch the OS X kernel source code, put together a modified kernel binary, and even write his own drivers that enabled the kernel to read from the Wii’s SD card slot in order to boot up properly. In other words, the process was about as hands-on as it gets.

Something doesn't look right here... (Image credit: Bryan Keller)

Even after all that effort, Keller still encountered some unusual problems. One, for example, resulted in the device displaying Mac OS X in the wrong 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 that Mac OS X uses.” The solution was to use two framebuffers — one for Mac OS X Cheetah and one for the Wii — and have the output from one converted into something the other could understand.

It was just one of many problems that Keller (unsurprisingly) encountered in this unusual hack. But despite the hitches, the endeavor was a success, with Mac OS X Cheetah (released in 2001) fully operational on the Nintendo Wii (first launched in 2006). Keller has posted the source code on Git Hub for anyone brave enough to take on the challenge themselves.

Reflecting on the project, Keller said that “There’s something deeply satisfying about accomplishing something that, at the start, you weren’t even sure was possible… 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.”

Follow Tech Radar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow Tech Radar on Tik Tok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on Whats App too.

Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as Tech Radar, Alex writes for i More, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at Mac Format magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

1 Xiaomi 17 review: a compact flagship without compromise

2 Chat GPT’s backup model just got smarter — as Open AI adds a new Pro option

3 Trust Me: The False Prophet is Netflix's greatest true crime series to date

4 Major study claims white-collar workers are fighting back against AI in the workplace

5 In a sea of Play Station Portal cases, the one I value the most has yet to be beaten

Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Key Takeaways

• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest smartphones
• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
• Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
• Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards

• ‘Everything is magenta’: This wild hack got Mac OS X Cheetah working on a Nintendo Wii, and I can’t quite believe it