Developer ports classic Mac OS to Nintendo Wii, GameCube
A programmer has successfully booted Mac OS on PowerPC-based Nintendo hardware for the first time since the 1990s.
What to know
- A developer successfully ported classic Mac OS to Nintendo GameCube and Wii hardware, reaching the desktop—the first such achievement outside Apple since the CHRP clone era of the 1990s.
- The project began in June 2025 and involved porting OpenBIOS, writing custom device drivers, and manually debugging without AI assistance, undertaken as a learning exercise rather than for production use.
- The developer was motivated by appreciation for the historical complexity of Mac OS architecture, describing the layered hacks spanning decades as a form of 'jank' worth exploring.
- The work is not yet ready for public release but demonstrates the feasibility of running legacy operating systems on unconventional hardware through careful firmware and driver porting.
This is a notable technical achievement worth celebrating and potentially releasing for the community.
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“Hopefully their port of Mac OS gets put in the Open Shop Channel!”
unfocused · Hacker News ↗
The Wii remains a valuable platform for hobbyist projects and retro gaming, with active modding communities.
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“I went back to my Nintendo Wii which was already modded, and updated it to the latest modded hacks and I was amazed to see more software, stability, and even online gaming brought back!”
unfocused · Hacker News ↗
The Wii represents peak console design due to physical media distribution and quality standards.
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“The Wii was truly the peak of gaming consoles. Games still came on disk so there wasn't the madness of endless buggy updates”
jedbrooke · Hacker News ↗
DHowett Software developer and porterGoldfish64 Parallel Mac OS X porter
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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Hacker News community responds with related projects and context
Comments on the post highlight related uses of modded Wii hardware, draw parallels to other retro computing efforts, and discuss the Wii's historical significance in gaming. Some commenters note the Wii's suitability for homebrew and alternative operating systems.
“Nintendo just shutdown Mariokart Tour on mobile. I went back to my Nintendo Wii which was already modded, and updated it to the latest modded hacks and I was amazed to see more software, stability, and even online gaming brought back!”
— unfocused -
Interesting timing. Nintendo just shutdown Mariokart Tour on mobile. I went back to my Nintendo Wii which was already modded, and updated it to the latest modded hacks and I was amazed to see more software, stability, and even online gaming brought back!Hopefully their port of Mac OS gets put in the Open Shop Channel!Open Shop Channel…
2 more of the top 3 · 11 posts in this stretch
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The Wii was truly the peak of gaming consoles.Games still came on disk so there wasn’t the madness of endless buggy updates (disks had one opportunity to be bug free so quality was at a higher standard) and internet connectivity was not guaranteed, so there was no way for micro transactions.However, internet connectivity was available, so things…
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> This got me acquainted with the classic Mac OS,> and I fell in love with the jank as it were (hacks> upon hacks upon hacks going back to the 1980s is> something I’d definitely describe as “jank”).Modern macOS still has classic Mac OS code in it dating as far back, and has added Objective C and Swift abstractions on top.
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Developer details technical approach and motivations
The developer published a technical writeup explaining why they undertook the project, what drew them to classic Mac OS, and the specific challenges faced porting the bootloader, firmware, and device drivers. They emphasize all work was done manually without AI assistance.
“I fell in love with the jank as it were (hacks upon hacks upon hacks going back to the 1980s is something I'd definitely describe as "jank")…”
— DHowett -
background
Classic Mac OS reaches desktop on Wii and GameCube — The developer announced reaching a major milestone: classic Mac OS booting to the desktop on Nintendo hardware. This is described as likely the first time since the CHRP clone era that anyone outside Apple has brought classic Mac OS to a new system.
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background
Developer begins Mac OS port to Nintendo hardware — The developer forked upstream OpenBIOS to begin porting classic Mac OS to PowerPC systems with ArtX chipsets, specifically targeting GameCube, Wii, and eventually Wii U.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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2 outlets My favourite PowerMac is a Nintendo Wii
first by HN Best, 13d ago · also HN Frontpage
What people are saying 7 voices from 1 site · best of 11 · verbatim
- Oct 31
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I've played more MK Wii custom tracks, on split-screen multiplayer, than pretty much any other multiplayer game for the past few years.The custom mkwii wiki has 17,000 articles
- Oct 30
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> Nintendo just shutdown Mariokart Tour on mobile.Eek my son is not gonna be happy about that
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Same guy who made NT for Macintosh https://github.com/Wack0/Macintosh and GC/Wii https://github.com/Wack0/entii-for-workcubes if you're unaware.
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If I can play Specter or Shuffle board air hokey, the BW boulder dash clone, Marathon, I'm game. Can I? You just cost me some, now a search for a Mac classic. The emulators don't do it for me.
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Nintendo Wii have made for neat zero knowledge Nostr relays, mesh-net (CJDNS) routers, and other makeshift "underground" infrastructure.USB hubs, USB SATA adapters and USB Ethernet interfaces for the win.
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this reminds me of how the original xbox 360 dev kits were actually just powermac G5s. the mid-2000s were a wild time for cross-platform hardware.
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oh geez.. I was not thinking about it, but if this piece of hardware runs PowerPC Mac.. then Amiga OS 4.x or MorphOS and Amiga baby... PowerMac is for sissies when you compare this opportunity!