You Can Run Mac OS on the Nintendo Wii

With over 100 million models bought since its debut in 2006, there’s no denying the recognition of the Wii, however two Nintendo consoles later, persons are nonetheless discovering clever ways to expand the capabilities of the console. This hack focuses extra on productiveness than gaming, nevertheless, by turning the Wii into a Mac.

Apple doesn’t like its working techniques operating on something aside from Apple {hardware}, so getting the Wii to run Mac OS 9 isn’t as simple as popping an set up disc into the console’s disc slot and letting it run. Not simple, however not unattainable, as a result of it seems the PowerPC processor contained in the Nintendo Wii is close enough to the PowerPC chips Apple utilized in its Power Macintosh G3 machines for this to work.

Pierre Dandumont explains how they managed to get Mac OS 9.2 operating on a Wii on their website (courtesy of Google Translate) and as intelligent because the hack is, there’s layers of complexity that outcome within the working system operating lower than completely.

Making the Nincintosh (Mactendo? MacinWii?) depends on a hacked Wii’s capability to run a Linux-based OS by the unofficial Homebrew Channel, which in flip facilitates Mac-on-Linux, which permits Mac OS to run beneath Linux. A disk picture of Mac OS 9.2 on an SD card is inserted into Wii and after booting the console and opening the Homebrew Channel, BootMii is used to start out Linux after which Mac OS, minus the long-lasting startup sound—one in all many points when operating the OS on a gaming console.

Issues with resolutions make Mac OS 9.2 look extraordinarily ugly on the Wii, however Dandumont was capable of get Internet Explorer 5 to load, minus a working web connection, iTunes, with sound that crackles earlier than the appliance rapidly crashes, and even Doom, which musters only a single body each minute making it utterly unplayable.

Mac OS 9 debuted seven years earlier than the Wii did, and Dandumont questioned if a newer model of Apple’s desktop and laptop computer OS would have extra success. Unfortunately, Mac OS X calls for no less than 64MB of RAM to operate, and the Wii can’t provide up any greater than 52MB, inflicting the OS to crash at startup. So as spectacular as it’s to see the Wii studying new methods, it’s not a alternative for Apple’s {hardware}.