
NCSA Mosaic for X 1.0 available (1993) - myth_drannon
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/comp.windows.x.apps/F1b2qOfL9j8/TMVnLhg07xcJ
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Sir_Cmpwn
Compiled this on Linux with very minor changes (which were limited to Makefile
edits), and still works - even on Wayland, via Xwayland!

Unfortunately it doesn't support HTTP 1.0 so no one is willing to talk to me.
I was able to get it to render local HTML files, though:

[https://sr.ht/ULoK.png](https://sr.ht/ULoK.png)

Update: gopher and FTP work:

[https://sr.ht/MDUE.png](https://sr.ht/MDUE.png)

[https://sr.ht/0E09.png](https://sr.ht/0E09.png)

Telnet SIGABRTS and gives me an email address to send the core dump to (highly
tempting). If anyone knows of a working finger server, I'll give it a shot.

Update 2: mailed a core dump to that address, it bounced :( reached out to
postmaster@ to see where they went.

~~~
forapurpose
What is in the "Annotate" menu?

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Not sure, I cannot click the dropdowns.

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raverbashing
> Added new resource, gethostbynameIsEvil, for Sun's that coredump when
> gethostbyname() is called to try to find out what their own names are

Solid OS engineering right there

~~~
arbitrage
Further down the Changelog:

> Fixed mysterious stupid coredump that only hits Suns.

Man, I miss my Sun admin days. Always exciting.

~~~
kalleboo
When I went to university in 2003 they had nothing but Suns. Had a lot of
"fun" trying to compile modern software like Gaim to run on that, while
keeping within my measly quota. There was a repository where everyone would
share the paths to the dependencies they had built so you wouldn't have to
waste your own quota.

Was kinda fun running Microsoft Internet Explorer for UNIX though.

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JetSpiegel
I like how WWW is one protocol amongst many:

> a wide variety of networked information sources, including Gopher, WAIS,
> World Wide Web, NNTP/Usenet news, Techinfo, FTP, local filesystems, Archie,
> finger, Hyper-G, HyTelnet, TeXinfo, telnet, tn3270, and more.

~~~
stiGGG
So Mosaic was also a local file browser? I always thought this stupid idea to
combine web and local file browsing into one app was invented by Microsoft and
then later adopted by KDE (Konqueror)...

~~~
simonh
In the early days web sites would often be down, or you might need to copy
pages or a whole site to disk for access offline, especially on laptops. Even
in the early 2000s I used to take dumps of HTML documentation with me on disk
or thumb drive, because even if I had internet access at a hotel or customer
site I wouldn't have access back to the company network. It was an essential
feature.

~~~
girvo
I constantly use this feature, even today. I regularly use Dash, and when I’m
working on a personal project I like to use SiteSucker or safaris WebArchive
save format to collect the docs, information and blog posts I need.

With this, I can then turn off my internet and dive deep into the task. It’s
how I learn!

About the only missing thing I have is an offline cache for language package
managers — I use so many that it’s a bit difficult. I should really go look
for some Docker images that have already tackled it...

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zerr
I wonder how did they take Mosaic from NCSA to found the business (later to be
renamed to Netscape)? Did they really reimplement the browser, or maybe they
had rights?

~~~
justin66
A number of companies licensed the rights to that code (it's in their credits
as "Spyglass, Inc."). I just assumed that Netscape had a relationship with
NCSA, but the browser that kept the "Spyglass, Inc." credit longest was
actually IE, as far as I know.

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markonen
Love the first reply to the release announcement:

Hi Marc,

thanks for releasing this. I found it to be a useful little program, however
the Look&Feel seems a bit dated.

Best regards, Manuel

~~~
sverige
Note the time stamp. That was posted today, not in 1993.

~~~
ManuelKiessling
Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

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codezero
it's a pretty fun exercise to download the earliest mosaic browser you can
find and get it to build on your current platform. Then to see what sites
actually still work. The last time I did this, Dennis Ritchie's site loaded
the best.

~~~
weinzierl
Made this experiment a while ago too. Many pages, even plain simple ones, fail
because it doesn‘t support the HTTP host header and therefore name based
virtual hosts.

It can only display one site per IP and port.

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kalleboo
jwz has a proxy you can run to inject the Host header for old browsers
[https://www.jwz.org/hacks/http10proxy.pl](https://www.jwz.org/hacks/http10proxy.pl)

~~~
derekp7
Is this the HN equivalent of the old "goatse" links? Or do some people on HN
not realizes that jwz substitutes a page with an explicit graphic image when
linked to on HN?

Would be nice to see an HN update that converts jwz links to non-clickable.

~~~
kalleboo
Ugh, sorry my bad. I always open links from comments in new tabs and Safari
doesn't send a Referer in that case so I had completely forgotten that he does
that

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jenshk
Not Found The requested URL /Mosaic/xmosaic-source/xmosaic-1.0.tar.Z was not
found on this server.

Link does not work

~~~
jenshk
Use:

[https://www.w3.org/History/1993/WWW/XMosaic/xmosaic-1.0.tar....](https://www.w3.org/History/1993/WWW/XMosaic/xmosaic-1.0.tar.Z)

Works!

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piker
Anyone have a link to the actual tarball?

~~~
jenshk
[https://www.w3.org/History/1993/WWW/XMosaic/xmosaic-1.0.tar....](https://www.w3.org/History/1993/WWW/XMosaic/xmosaic-1.0.tar.Z)

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exikyut
To clarify, the (1993) does indeed signify the release of this in 1993. This
isn't a historical software release (this folded in many improvements from
external contributors because it was open source).

Maybe I'm dumb but I did need to do a double take.

