Everything is magenta: This wild hack got Mac OS X Cheetah working on a Nintendo Wii, and I cant quite believe it

Date:
Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:05:17 +0000

Description:
A programmer got Mac OS X Cheetah working on a Nintendo Wii, solving myriad problems along the way.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member
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your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter One coder got an ancient version of macOS 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?

Thats exactly what programmer Bryan Keller managed, with the enterprising coder detailing the at-times convoluted process on their blog . And as youd imagine, getting an operating system that was discontinued almost 25 years
ago to run on a games console thats 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 PowerPC 750CL processor which is an updated version of the PowerPC 750CXe found in Apple s old iMac G3 and iBook G3 computers Keller had an inkling that his attempted hack would work. It proved to be a hunch that was right on the money. Article continues below You may like 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 MacBook Neos gaming performance with surprising results

That doesnt 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 Wiis SD card slot in order to boot up properly. In other words, the process was about as hands-on as it gets. Worth pursuing 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 Wiis 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 GitHub for anyone brave enough to take on the challenge themselves. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Reflecting on the project, Keller said that Theres something deeply
satisfying about accomplishing something that, at the start, you werent 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 TechRadar 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!

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/everything-is-magenta-this-wild-hack-got-m ac-os-x-cheetah-working-on-a-nintendo-wii-and-i-cant-quite-believe-it


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