https://eliotakira.com/neko/

Logo

Neko: A History of a Software Pet

2022-07-05

Neko is a software cat that runs around on the screen, chasing the
mouse cursor.

It has led many lives through the history of computers.

Neko on PC-9801

The oldest version, as far as I've been able to trace back, was
written in the 1980's by Naoshi Watanabe (Ruo Tian Bu Zhi ). It was called
NEKO.COM and ran on the Japanese computer NEC PC-9801 in the MS-DOS
command line.

Neko on Macintosh

The next version ran on the Macintosh computer as a "desktop
accessory". It was called NekoDA, written in 1989 by Kenji Gotoh (Hou 
Teng Shou An ).

Neko animation steps

The author, who has since had a career as a manga illustrator,
designed new images for the cat. He has declared them as public
domain, and the same pixel art has been used in all following
generations.

Neko on Windows 3

In 1990, xneko for the X Windows System was written by Masayuki Koba
(Gu Chang Zheng Xing ). The same year, Tatsuya Kato wrote oneko for Linux and BSD
systems. In 1991, it was ported to Windows 3 by Dara Khani.

Neko for Windows      [neko-in-ci]

Building Neko

In the late 1990's, David Harvey, a university student at the time,
rewrote xneko to Neko for Windows, also called Neko98. He has since
worked as a software engineer at Sega Europe, a video game company
based in Japan.

Around 2004, a JavaScript version called webneko was written by
Gregory Bell, and the cat has since continued to live and multiply
quietly on the web.

In 2010, a programmer neozeed adapted the 32-bit version to recompile
for 64-bit Windows 7/8/10 and so on to this day.

Neko is one of the longest-living software projects, lovingly
rewritten by the community to run on a wide range of platforms
ancient and modern - including PC98, Macintosh, Windows, NEXTSTEP,
BeOS, IBM OS/2, Palm OS, iPhone, Android, and Arduino - from personal
computers to mobile phones and microcontrollers.

Icon library

[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]
[still]

Here is a collection of Neko variants found in the wild.

Many of the images were extracted from an archaic file format called
.icl, then converted from .ico to .png format.

Each variant has 32 images of 32x32 pixels, corresponding to actions
like run, scratch, yawn, and sleep.

Future of Neko

This web page is an evergreen garden for the preservation and further
development of Neko. It will be updated with new information when
there is progress.

https://eliotakira.com/neko

Source code archive

A public repository has been created to serve as a historical archive
of all source code related to Neko as an open-source software
project.

https://github.com/eliot-akira/neko

  * 1988 - NEKO.COM (NEC PC-9801)
  * 1990 - xneko (X Windows)
  * 1992 - Neko Runs Free (Windows 3.x)
  * 1993 - oneko (Linux)
  * 1993 - Neko DA (Macintosh)
  * 1997 - Icon Libraries (Windows)
  * 1998 - Neko98 (Windows)
  * 2000 - Replicat v1.06 (BeOS)
  * 2004 - webneko (JavaScript)
  * 2010 - Neko touchscreen program (Arduino)
  * 2010 - Neko x64 (Windows)
  * 2011 - ANeko (Android)

Dedication

Special thanks to my father, who brought home a PC-9801 as a family
computer when I was a child.

References

  * Neko (sohutouea)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Home

About

Projects

  * Neko: A History of a Software Pet
  * 8x12 Pixels
  * Retro Macintosh
  * Primordial Soup of Unsolved Mysteries
  * An Algorithm of Space
  * A Glimpse of Gamelon 5
  * Iris - April 2020
  * Blossom of the Five Skandhas
  * Warm Window