ecliptik

This gives me an AI project for the week: having Claude port the gopher browser [1] it built for Classic MacOS to Haiku.

1. https://github.com/ecliptik/geomys

I am willing to check this out. I have 512Ke and Mac Plus hardware and am always looking for ways to maximize the hardware capabilities.

Claude built me a meta web/notes/code search engine with IOS and MacOS apps, and for fun I asked it to make a Haiku version [1], which it did in under 20 minutes.

With AI I feel like a lot of these bygone-era OS's could see a whole new ecosystem of modern apps within a very short period of time.

1. https://github.com/machiya-kobo/shiori/tree/main#haiku

Few months ago I had Claude build me a Gopher browser for Classic Macintosh systems, geomys[1]. I was using TurboGopher[2] before then, and it worked, but had a lot of design choices that are clunky today.

I tried to focus on keeping with the Apple HIG from the 1990s, while also making it more aligned with modern browser principles.

1. https://github.com/ecliptik/geomys

2. https://www.macintoshrepository.org/265-turbogopher

In those years in the systems group I was working in at a fortune 500, we were very interested in this type of technology. Mostly using Solaris Zones and cgroups and trying to do this ourselves with limited results.

When Docker came out it solved so many issues we were having. Thank you for scratching that itch.

I work with Claude to port games to DOS and build new Classic Macintosh apps [1][2][3] using real hardware.

For a while I was doing the SDcard swap thing; but realized with a usb4vc[4] (hands), a vga/hdmi usb capture dongle (eyes/ears), an old Wemo switch (on/off/reboot) and ftp/appleshare (files/logs) I could have Claude do it all for me.

Claude made me vcctrl[5] that ties all of it together, including an mcp, skills and a webkvm.

1. https://github.com/ecliptik/doskutsu

2. https://github.com/ecliptik/flynn

3. https://github.com/ecliptik/talkip

4. https://github.com/dekuNukem/USB4VC

5. https://github.com/ecliptik/vcctrl

Will there be a Claude Sheets too? I find myself using Claude to work with spreadsheets more than almost any other document type. It does okay now, but feel like it could be even better, especially with visualizations and formulas.

Adding Ode to the Half-Broken [1] to the list. Read it a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me.

>Wrestling with themes of loneliness, connection, and purpose, this hope-punk sci-fi is for fans of Becky Chambers’s Monk & Robot duology

1. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/787289/ode-to-the-h...

I do this for porting things to DOS. Was swapping a CF card back and forth between a 486 PC and my laptop that was running Claude and it was extremely tedious and required me to physically be at the system.

Automated it entirely by giving Claude hands/eyes/ears so it can take complete control of the 486 using a raspberrypi 5, a usb4vc HAT for PS/2 and a VGA capture device. Adding an ethernet card and a tcp/ip boot profile for FTP, Claude then can update binaries, test them, and gather logs. Now I just steer Claude and it handles interfacing with the machine for me.

https://github.com/ecliptik/vcctrl/tree/main/

I'm doing something similar for DOS SDL ports. Repo isn't public yet, but idea is to have a repo with a knowledge base, skills and patches agents can use when porting to avoid having to bootstrap everything from scratch.

It's dumb, but whenever I see something representing the planets, I always count them. Occasionally you come across places that still include Pluto.

Most recent example I found was the Swatch MoonSwatch Collection [1], which includes the Sun, Moon, eight planets and Pluto[2].

1. https://www.swatch.com/en-us/bioceramic-moonswatch-collectio...

2. https://www.swatch.com/en-us/mission-to-pluto-so33m101/SO33M...

I knew of GPG key signing parties, but never anything at this scale or impact. Might try booting the "Signing Computer Operating System Image Release coen-2.0.1" ISO in a VM and checking it out.

Onigiri [1] - https://github.com/ecliptik/onigiri

A calorie tracker for iPhone/Watch/iPad, no subscriptions, no ads, integrates with Apple Health and fully open source. Includes optional AI features, either using on-device Apple Intelligence or BYO with Anthropic, OpenAI and OpenAI compatible services (eg self-hosted).

Still tuning it, but over the last month I've used it to lose around 10lbs.

I'm planning to put it in Testflight to avoid the 7 day signing expiration and improve iCloud integration, but don't have any plans to put it in the App Store. Developed with Claude Code and Axiom skills [2].

1. https://ecliptik.github.io/onigiri/

2. https://charleswiltgen.github.io/Axiom/

That's great they replaced it under warranty. I thought I broke the IDE connector once on the motherboard when re-connecting the cable because a pin was missing. The Gateway support rep calmed me down on the phone and that's how I learned about cable keying.

I've am working my way through benchmarking it on a few different CPUS [1]. A Pentium Overdrive 83MHz gets around 30fps, and the 486DX2-66MHz around 20fps. Because the 50MHz will use a bus speed to 25MHz I am expecting it to be 10-15fps.

Even with a lower frame rate gameplay is relatively smooth with having a fixed-timestamp mode [2].

The biggest difference in performance is the sound backend [3]. Gravis Ultrasound and Adlib for some reason halve the framerate on all cpus and it's the next challenge to point Claude at.

1. https://github.com/ecliptik/doskutsu/blob/main/docs/FPS-MATR...

2. https://github.com/ecliptik/doskutsu/tree/main#fixed-timeste...

3. https://github.com/ecliptik/doskutsu/blob/main/docs/SOUND.md

The hippie copy mentioned was the ad my dad bought our first PC from. He was coming back from a business trip and asked the company computer guy to help him choose one for our family. We ended up with the 486DX2-50MHz "Integrated VESA System" [1].

Calling the Gateway 2000 customer support 800 number was my introduction to understanding computers and I am grateful to their staff for being patient with a 12 year old.

We got rid of it in the early aughts, but I kept the CPU all these years. Recently I found a similar Gateway slimline desktop (badged a 486DX2-66MHz) and have been using Claude to port things to DOS on it, like Cave Story [2][3]. The original 50MHz CPU still works.

1. https://books.google.com/books?id=L2RD68Gg2sMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA...

2. https://github.com/ecliptik/doskutsu/

3. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YLFztifZKQ8

Google Buzz [1] along with Wave you both were too soon for this world.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Buzz

I have a PicoGUS and have had a lot of fun futzing around with Claude and porting Cave Story to DOS [1] the last couple of months after SDL announced DOS support.

Originally I was just using it as a Soundblaster, but in the last few weeks added Waveblaster, Adlib, and Gravis Ultrasound support. It's been a lot of fun learning how the GUS works and hearing how distinctively different it is from other sound hardware of that era.

1. https://github.com/ecliptik/doskutsu

Semi-related, since SDL added support for DOS a few weeks ago I've worked with Claude to port Cave Story to DOS [1].

On a Pentium 75 it can get 30fps and with decoupling the frame timer it plays at the same speed as the original. The port offloads the Organya synth soundtrack to MIDI to improve performance, and also sounds amazing.

Still working on a few bug fixes, performance tweaks, and Waveblaster support, but it's playable.

1. https://codeberg.org/ecliptik/doskutsu

Not all of California, but San Diego has Measure A[1] on the upcoming primary to tax non-primary homes.

1. https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/04/20/2026-primary-e...

The Verge has an on-going series Where's the Trump Phone? [1] with updates every week. They even managed to get an interview with one of the execs a few months back.

1. https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/843498/trump-phone

My favorite Nullsoft software that came out the end of this era was WASTE [1].

Peer-to-peer (back when P2P was all the rage), encrypted, decentralized private networks.

Group of friends and I used it post-college as a way to share files and chat, and was much better than AIM or other instant messaging at the time.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASTE