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Hello, I am Suprjacob. I have been to this InsanelyMac forum for quite some time, but just now created an account because of this freak idea I had. Mac OS on the Wii.

 

Older Macs are PowerPCs. The Wii is a... crappified PowerPC. So, how can this work?

 

Simple Wii Specs:

CPU - IBM 'Broadway'. 729 MHz.

GPU - ATI 'Hollywood'. 243 MHz. 3 MB eDRAM. 24 MB RAM.

Memory - 64 MB GDDR3 RAM

 

(More detailed here: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii_Hardware )

 

Now, OSX requires a 800-something MHz CPU and obviously more RAM (only 64MB availble here). Is it possible to 'dumb down' OSX or even use OS 9 on this kind of architecture?

 

Booting the Wii Mac? There is homebrew software now possible on the Wii using an SD card and a USB drive. Check out the wiibrew.org wiki. There is a working LINUX (Debian-based) distribution available for the Wii, so I thought, why can't there be a Mac OSWii?

 

What are everybody's thoughts on this?

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Well, right off the bat there would be a HUGE problem that would probably prove to be insurmountable. The graphics chip has no equivalent in the MAC/PC world. It is custom designed for the Wii, so i'd be willing to bet it doesn't even support VESA graphics modes. You might be able to boot the Darwin kernel on a Wii, but i'd be willing to bet the GUI wouldn't work. Most graphics support on Hackintoshes use existing MacOS kexts; the "Hollywood" GPU isn't close enough to anything else to work with any of the ATI kexts.

I'll tell you one thing, unless you know a good bit of C and assembly code as well as how that CPU works, you're not going to get very far. It would be a feat to circumvent the Wii and actually boot OS X. Then it would probably panic or not even boot from not being able to flash the open firmware. Your best bet is some kind of emulation, and don't try OS X for that one. Sorry for the discouragement. :blink:

Why I can't install on my Sega Saturn. Where is the dvd drive?! ;)

 

He said it supports USB drive, which i'm sure includes DVD-ROMs. I'm assuming it would be installed to SD card (dunno how though, i'm almost sure Wii doesn't do SDHC); I think 2GB is the biggest non-SDHC available.

You should try to familiarize yourself with getting arbitrary code to run on the Wii first. Look for this on the warez scene.

 

Otherwise, you'd probably need to look at ways to emulate a bootloader for OS X, though you might get help from something like PearPC.

 

And finally, wrong forum. :unsure:

I wonder why exactly why you want to do this... just for fun? I mean the OSX86 had an objective and that is to run this OS X on a PC like platform that may be close an actual Mac hardware wise. The ultimate goal is to enhance its working/functionality so that it gets as close to real Mac as possible... On the other hand with the stunted hardware the Wii has... I just wish it were a little more close to the PC hardware available nowadays... :D

Answering your encouraging questions....

 

It would be a feat to circumvent the Wii and actually boot OS X. Then it would probably panic or not even boot from not being able to flash the open firmware. Your best bet is some kind of emulation, and don't try OS X for that one. Sorry for the discouragement. ;)

 

Now, I'm not much of a tech-guy here, but how much different is booting Linux from OSX, apart from the EFI? 'Cause my Wii can already boot a fully functional Debian Linux distro (non-GUI) and I can use the terminal with just a USB keyboard.

 

(Please, no Linux bashing here. I know it's a useless OS, but it works.)

 

After you get it to work, can you do the same with my Gameboy Color?

 

Well, not with OSX, no. You might be able to get a Mobile OS platform going on it if you get one of those Flash cartridges for it. Or maybe those are for the GBA. I dunno. Haven't looked into it. Don't really care, honestly.

 

He said it supports USB drive, which i'm sure includes DVD-ROMs. I'm assuming it would be installed to SD card (dunno how though, i'm almost sure Wii doesn't do SDHC); I think 2GB is the biggest non-SDHC available.

 

Heh, actually I've seen 4GB SD cards (non-SDHC). That would be really slow though. USB drive might be easier/faster?

 

Meh.. this project faces some of the same issues as putting OS X on the PS3... the main issue being the lack of drivers. Anyone willing to code an entire set of OS X drivers for the Wii? :P

 

Well, don't need a mouse. There are already Wiimote drivers for OSX already using a bluetooth thing. I haven't looked into it, though. The keyboard would just be a USB one.

 

The only thing I can see a driver creation issue is with the Graphics and EFI.

 

There is a list of currently working and non-working hardware for WiiLinux here: http://www.gc-linux.org/wiki/WL:whiite-linux#Hardware

 

I wonder why exactly why you want to do this... just for fun? I mean the OSX86 had an objective and that is to run this OS X on a PC like platform that may be close an actual Mac hardware wise. The ultimate goal is to enhance its working/functionality so that it gets as close to real Mac as possible... On the other hand with the stunted hardware the Wii has... I just wish it were a little more close to the PC hardware available nowadays... :P

 

1) Mostly for fun, yes :)

2) Because Linux... is useless. Except for GRUB.

3) Because OSX... rules.

4) With #2 and #3, the Wii homebrew project/community needs a different OS than Linux. Details about WiiLinux (same as GC-Linux) here: http://www.gc-linux.org/wiki/Main_Page and here: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_apps/Wii_Linux .

 

I guess I just don't understand why this isn't possible.

I guess I just don't understand why this isn't possible.
Because...everyone already told you why...there are no drivers.

 

Now, I'm not much of a tech-guy here, but how much different is booting Linux from OSX, apart from the EFI? 'Cause my Wii can already boot a fully functional Debian Linux distro (non-GUI) and I can use the terminal with just a USB keyboard.
Exactly. And that's Linux, which runs on everything. And you still just have a terminal. And you want OS X with a GUI. Bit of a tall order. It's not gonna happen, sorry.
Hollywood is basically a higher clocked version of the gekko gpu in the Gamecube, which best resembles the Radeon 9700.

 

 

Actually, it doesn't resemble the 9700 much at all, it's a completely foreign design to the PC world, with eDRAM on die and a whole lot of architectural differences. From an IGN article:

 

""The 'Hollywood' is a large-scale integrated chip that includes the GPU, DSP, I/O bridge and 3MBs of texture memory," a studio source told us."

 

doesn't resemble ANYTHING in the PC world; although it's a similar idea to the old Cyrix MediaGX processor, minus the actual processor core itself.

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