{"id":575262,"date":"2026-04-10T04:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575262\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:48:10","slug":"a-maverick-hacker-got-mac-os-x-running-on-a-wii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575262\/","title":{"rendered":"A maverick hacker got Mac OS X running on a Wii"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may already know that emulators can run Wii games on a Mac<\/a>. But one developer has flipped the script. Bryan Keller now has an ancient version of the Mac’s operating system running<\/a> on Nintendo’s 2006 game console (via Kottke<\/a>). Why? Because they said it couldn’t be done.<\/p>\n

The developer first had the idea in 2013 while a sophomore in college. However, they found renewed motivation five years ago when Redditor u\/CussdomTidder posted<\/a>, “There is a zero percent chance of this ever happening.”<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Developer Bryan Keller took it personally. (YouTube \/ ESPN \/ Netflix)<\/p>\n

Keller used that as fuel to begin plugging away, “feeling encouraged” by the anonymous contrarian. Thus began the process of porting Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) onto a device designed to play Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy.<\/p>\n

“Last year, when I saw that Windows NT had been ported to the Wii, I felt a renewed sense of motivation,” Keller wrote. “Even if my lack of low-level experience resulted in failure, attempting this project would still be an opportunity to learn something new.”<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Keller didn’t allow something as trivial as a flight to get in the way of the task at hand. (Bryan Keller \/ GitHub)<\/p>\n

Keller noted that the Wii is a phenomenally hackable console, with other enterprising hackers porting Windows 95<\/a> and NT, Linux and NetBSD onto it. Nintendo’s system also runs a PowerPC chip similar to those found in older Macs. “Given this close lineage, I felt confident that the CPU wouldn’t be a blocker,” they wrote. From there, Keller wrote a custom boot loader, patched the kernel and wrote new drivers. They even got the Wii’s USB ports working for mouse and keyboard input.<\/p>\n

Tthe developer found the process “deeply satisfying,” especially given the initial doubt. (I’m talking to you, disparaging Redditor.) “In the end, I learned (and accomplished) far more than I ever expected,” Keller wrote. “And perhaps more importantly, I was reminded that the projects that seem just out of reach are exactly the ones worth pursuing.”<\/p>\n

For the technically minded, the developer’s blog<\/a> goes into extensive detail about the process. And full-on madlads can visit Keller’s GitHub<\/a> to try it for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may already know that emulators can run Wii games on a Mac. But one developer has flipped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[253055,74,186049,253056],"class_list":["post-575262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-bryan-keller","tag-technology","tag-wii","tag-wii-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}