Geomys

A Gopher browser for classic 68000 Macintosh systems, from the Mac Plus and up. Implements RFC 1436 and RFC 4266 with a full Macintosh GUI. Supports monochrome on System 6 and 256 colors on System 7. Works with MacTCP. Cross-compiled on Linux using Retro68.

This project was 100% vibe coded using Claude Code.

Download · Features · Keyboard Shortcuts · Themes · Building · Testing · Acknowledgments · License

System 6

Directory Browsing	Multi-Window & Search
Text Page & Edit Menu	Dark Mode & Favorites

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Download

Pre-built binaries are available on the Releases page:

Edition	Description	Memory	Download
Geomys	Full build — 4 windows, all features including 256-color	~1024KB	.dsk · .hqx
Geomys Lite	Recommended for Mac Plus — 2 windows, core features	~505KB	.dsk · .hqx
Geomys Minimal	Bare-bones — 1 window, smallest binary	~297KB	.dsk · .hqx

Each edition is available as .dsk (800K floppy image) and .hqx (BinHex archive). No build toolchain required — just download and run. See docs/BUILD.md for custom builds.

Requirements

• Macintosh Plus or later (4MB RAM, 68000 CPU)
• System 6.0.8 or System 7 with MacTCP
• 256-color themes require Mac II or later with Color QuickDraw

Features

Gopher Protocol

• All 19 canonical and non-canonical Gopher item types:
  • Interactive: directories (1), text files (0), CSO phonebook (2), search (7), HTML (h)
  • Telnet handoff: telnet (8) and TN3270 (T) with connection dialog and app launching
  • Download to disk: BinHex (4), DOS binary (5), UUencode (6), binary (9), document (d), GIF (g), image (I), PNG (p), RTF (r), sound (s)
  • Display: informational (i), error (3)
• Gopher+ protocol suite: +ABSTRACT display, +SCORE search result scoring, bulk attribute fetch ($), content negotiation (+VIEWS), and +ASK interactive forms
• Gopher+ runtime toggle in Options menu (default: off) — type indicators shown regardless
• Binary file downloads with progress dialog
• Image save with format/dimension detection
• HTML tag-stripping renderer for type h pages
• CSO/ph phonebook queries with formatted results
• Search queries (type 7) with dialog input

Browsing

• Web browser-style chrome: address bar, back/forward/home, stop/go/refresh
• Multi-window browsing (up to 4 simultaneous windows)
• Local page cache with instant back/forward navigation
• Favorites with persistent bookmarks
• Browsing history in the Go menu
• Find in Page with match highlighting

Display

• 9 built-in themes (Light, Dark, Solarized, Tokyo Night, Green Screen, Classic, Platinum)
• 256-color on System 7; monochrome on System 6
• ROM-based SICN/cicn icons for Gopher types and navigation buttons (color on Mac II+, mono fallback)
• 8 fonts (Monaco, Geneva, Chicago, Courier, New York; Helvetica, Times, Palatino on System 7) with independent size selection (9, 10, 12, 14)
• Double-buffered rendering
• Content-aware window zoom
• Horizontal and vertical scrolling

Classic Mac Integration

• Telnet handoff dialog for type 8/T items (launch Flynn or NCSA Telnet on System 7)
• Print support via Printing Manager
• Show Clipboard and Save As per HIG standard Edit and File menus
• List Manager for Favorites with keyboard type-ahead and scrolling
• AppleScript support: navigate and get URL commands for scripted automation (System 7+)
• Drag and drop: drag links to Desktop as text clippings, drop URLs to navigate (System 7.5+)
• MultiFinder, Apple Events, Notification Manager, and stationery pad support
• Balloon Help and SICN menu icons on System 7
• Dynamic window sizing for large screens and multi-monitor support
• Aligned with Apple Human Interface Guidelines (1992)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Keys	Notes
Back	Cmd+[	Previous page
Forward	Cmd+]	Next page
Refresh	Cmd+R	Reload current page
Stop	Cmd+.	Cancel loading
Open	Cmd+L	Focus address bar
Find	Cmd+F	Search current page
Find Again	Cmd+G	Next match
New Window	Cmd+N	Open new browser window
Close Window	Cmd+W	Close active window
Save Page As	Cmd+S	Save as text file
Print	Cmd+P	Print current page
Add Favorite	Cmd+D	Bookmark current page
Manage Favorites	Cmd+B	Open bookmark manager
Copy	Cmd+C	Copy selection to clipboard
Undo	Cmd+Z	Undo address bar edit
Scroll up/down	Arrow keys	One row at a time
Scroll page	Page Up/Down	One page at a time
Top/Bottom	Home/End	Jump to start or end
Select link	Up/Down (content)	Navigate links with keyboard
Follow link	Return	Open selected link
Cycle focus	Tab	Switch between address bar and content
Quit	Cmd+Q	Quit Geomys

Themes

Geomys ships with 9 built-in themes selectable from Options > Theme:

Theme	Type	Description
Light	Mono	White on black, default. Works on all systems.
Dark	Mono	Black on white. Works on all systems.
Solarized Light / Dark	Color	Ethan Schoonover's Solarized palette.
Tokyo Night Light / Dark	Color	Based on the Tokyo Night color scheme.
Green Screen	Color	Phosphor green on black CRT aesthetic.
Classic	Color	1990s web browser colors.
Platinum	Color	Mac OS 8/9 Appearance Manager inspired.

Mono themes work on all systems including the Mac Plus. Color themes require a Mac II or later with Color QuickDraw (detected automatically at runtime).

To create custom themes or learn how the theme engine works, see the full Theme Guide.

Building

Requires the Retro68 cross-compilation toolchain. Build it from source (68k only):

git clone https://github.com/autc04/Retro68.git
cd Retro68 && git submodule update --init && cd ..
mkdir Retro68-build && cd Retro68-build
bash ../Retro68/build-toolchain.bash --no-ppc --no-carbon --prefix=$(pwd)/toolchain

Then build Geomys:

./scripts/build.sh

Build Presets

Geomys supports fully customizable builds. Three presets cover common configurations:

Preset	Windows	Features	Memory
full	4	everything	~1024KB
lite	2	core browsing, themes, clipboard	~505KB
minimal	1	bare-bones, smallest binary	~297KB

The default build uses the full preset. Select a preset with --preset:

./scripts/build.sh --preset minimal    # stripped, for 1MB Macs
./scripts/build.sh --preset full       # everything, 4 windows

Individual features can be toggled with --feature / --no-feature flags. Presets are applied first, then individual flags override:

./scripts/build.sh --preset lite --gopher-plus --styles
./scripts/build.sh --max-windows 2 --color --no-cache

See docs/BUILD.md for the complete list of build flags, feature details, memory costs, and examples.

Testing

Uses Snow emulator (v1.3.1) with a Mac Plus ROM and System 6.0.8 SCSI hard drive image. Snow supports DaynaPORT SCSI/Link Ethernet emulation for MacTCP networking.

Acknowledgments

• Claude Code by Anthropic
• Retro68 by Wolfgang Thaller
• Snow emulator
• wallops by joshua stein — MacTCP wrapper (tcp.c/tcp.h), DNS resolution (dns.c/dns.h), and utility functions. ISC license.
• subtext by joshua stein — Additional utility and networking code. ISC license.
• Flynn — Sibling Telnet client project and architectural reference. ISC license.
• University of Illinois Board of Trustees — TCP networking code (tcp.c, 1990-1992)

License

ISC License. See LICENSE for full details.