http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko%5F%28computer%5Fprogram%29
Neko was originally written for the NEC PC-9801. It was later ported as a desk accessory to the Macintosh in 1989 by Kenji Gotoh, followed by an X version by Masayuki Koba. The program has no real purpose except entertainment.
I was introduced to the X program called xneko.
It would animate a little mouse that chased around the mouse pointer which was in the shape of a cat. Back then security for your X session was easy to bypass. A trick you could play in a college lab was to load up multiple xneko's onto another person's X display. This would create multiple cats chasing the mouse, and usually slowing down their window manager.
Other versions of the program.
Neko has been ported to many other systems.
- There is also a Neko screensaver for NEXTSTEP.
- Neko was available on Acorn Computers' RISC OS
- It has been ported to Mac OS X. The screensaver Neko.saver waited 5 years to move from version .91a to version .92, a universal binary. There's also a free-standing application for OS X 10.4 and up here.
- A port was made for Microsoft Windows 3.1.
- A port was made for Windows 95, ported by David Harvey from the X source.
- A BeOS version was written from scratch by Greg Weston as a demonstration of Be's "replicants" technology. An enhanced version of this program by John Yanarella is available at BeBits.
- IBM OS/2 version 2.0 shipped with Neko as an entertainment program.
- A port of Neko is used as a demo program for the XCB library.
- Oneko, a port based on xneko, for linux and bsd systems.
- A port, named NekoCat, was made by Laurent Duveau for Palm OS.
- A Neko character is available for the linux toy AMOR (Amusing Misuse Of Resources).
- A port named iNeko is available for the iPhone.
- An Opera widget is available at http://widgets.opera.com/widget/9602
