Overview
- Developer Bryan Keller has demonstrated Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah running on a Wii as a working port, turning the 2006 console into a retro Mac testbed.
- Keller wrote a custom bootloader that loads the XNU kernel from an SD card, built a device tree for the console, and patched the kernel to recognize Wii hardware.
- The port relies on new drivers for the Wii’s Hollywood system-on-a-chip, SD storage, a simple framebuffer display, and USB input that gained mouse and keyboard support via an IRC-supplied patch.
- The Wii’s IBM PowerPC 750CL CPU is closely related to chips in early G3 Macs, and Cheetah can operate below its nominal 128 MB RAM requirement, which made the tight 88 MB memory workable.
- Keller published a detailed write-up and code for others to inspect or try, framing the low-performance demo as a learning exercise sparked by a Reddit claim of “zero percent chance” and rooted in the Wii’s long hackable history.