Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Hackers Dissect Apple TV to Create the Cheapest Mac Ever

Apple TV is dead, long live the Mac Nano. Sort of.

Just two weeks after Apple released its streaming media box to the public, hackers successfully installed OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, on the $300 device, making it the cheapest PC Cupertino has ever sold.

"The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!" wrote "Semthex," the anonymous hacker responsible for the mod, at his website. "Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted."

The add-on may be of limited appeal to everyday users. It involves a laborious 13-step procedure, and the resulting installation is unable to take advantage of all the Apple TV's hardware. Without video acceleration, games can't floor the graphic chip's throttle. There's no audio or ethernet support either, making the box useless for its original purpose as a media hub.

Over the past week, however, enthusiasts worked to solve these problems, exchanging ideas over IRC and testing new versions of specially tailored system software Semthex created, which is necessary to bypass built-in restrictions on installing the full version of OS X.

[Source &More: wired]

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