1 month ago
Photo of Mac OS X moving connected a Nintendo Wii (Bryan Keller / GitHub)
You whitethorn already cognize that emulators tin tally Wii games connected a Mac. But 1 developer has flipped nan script. Bryan Keller now has an ancient type of nan Mac's operating strategy running connected Nintendo's 2006 crippled console (via Kottke). Why? Because they said it couldn't beryllium done.
The developer first had nan thought successful 2013 while a sophomore successful college. However, they recovered renewed information 5 years agone erstwhile Redditor u/CussdomTidder posted, "There is simply a zero percent chance of this ever happening."
Developer Bryan Keller took it personally. (YouTube / ESPN / Netflix)
Keller utilized that arsenic substance to statesman plugging away, "feeling encouraged" by nan anonymous contrarian. Thus began nan process of porting Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) onto a instrumentality designed to play Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy.
"Last year, erstwhile I saw that Windows NT had been ported to nan Wii, I felt a renewed consciousness of motivation," Keller wrote. "Even if my deficiency of low-level acquisition resulted successful failure, attempting this task would still beryllium an opportunity to study thing new."
Keller didn't let thing arsenic trivial arsenic a formation to get successful nan measurement of nan task astatine hand. (Bryan Keller / GitHub)
Keller noted that nan Wii is simply a phenomenally hackable console, pinch different enterprising hackers porting Windows 95 and NT, Linux and NetBSD onto it. Nintendo's strategy besides runs a PowerPC spot akin to those recovered successful older Macs. "Given this adjacent lineage, I felt assured that nan CPU wouldn't beryllium a blocker," they wrote. From there, Keller wrote a civilization footwear loader, patched nan kernel and wrote caller drivers. They moreover sewage nan Wii's USB ports moving for rodent and keyboard input.
Tthe developer recovered nan process "deeply satisfying," particularly fixed nan first doubt. (I'm talking to you, disparaging Redditor.) "In nan end, I learned (and accomplished) acold much than I ever expected," Keller wrote. "And possibly much importantly, I was reminded that nan projects that look conscionable retired of scope are precisely nan ones worthy pursuing."
For nan technically minded, nan developer's blog goes into extended item astir nan process. And full-on madlads tin sojourn Keller's GitHub to effort it for themselves.
