Mosaic-CK: An Updated, Unsupported Port of NCSA Mosaic

for Mac OS X, Tenon PowerMachTen, Linux and other compatible Unix-like OSes

Welcome to Floodgap's Mosaic-CK page, my local hacked-up port of Mosaic to bring it into the modern World Wide Web context. Although Mosaic-CK started as my simple effort to port NCSA Mosaic to my Power MachTen systems, I have decided to expand the project to allow people to experiment and play with this historic browser package in the 21st century.

The current version is 2.7ck9 (change-log), based on the Unix source for 2.7b5, released 11 July 2010. Please read the NCSA license before use. NCSA does not support this port; please send your comments and requests to ckaiser@floodgap.com.

What was NCSA Mosaic?

Mosaic is widely considered the grandfather of the modern web browser. Developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, it was the first Web browser to win widespread use and acceptance. Although it was not the first browser with a graphical interface (that was Erwise), nor the first to mix graphics with text (that was ViolaWWW), it established the conventions of a typical web browser that we still use today, and in the form of Spyglass Mosaic even became part of Microsoft Internet Explorer until version 7. NCSA discontinued support for Mosaic in 1997.

Mosaic supports a superset of HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866), with support for form widgets and basic tables and some of the Netscape-specific formatting extensions. The final version also included support for PNG, GIF and JPEG images. It was discontinued on the eve of HTML 3.2 (REC-html32) in 1997, although it necessarily does include some of that standard, particularly body styling. It does not include CSS support, nor Java or JavaScript, nor frames. Click the screenshot for a 56K image of Mosaic-CK rendering contemporary websites, including Google and Wikipedia.

Why use Mosaic?

Mosaic uses a very old rendering engine, and porting the entire length and breadth of HTML 5 to it would essentially require a complete rewrite. This makes it a bad choice for modern computers which can almost certainly run something more full-featured and compatible. However, its older core is well-suited to older machines and older operating systems with poorer compatibility (viz., can't run a modern GUI toolkit) or less processing power, and the rendering core still supports enough of a view of modern web sites to allow it to be functional, even if it's not attractive. Mosaic-CK's goal is to be "Lynx with graphics" -- a graphical interface but a fast, basic HTML rendering core reminiscent of that beloved text browser. Click the screenshot for an 80K image of Mosaic-CK rendering xkcd on Mac OS X.

Why a Mosaic branch?

NCSA no longer supports Mosaic, although it offered it as open source for non-commercial applications (Mosaic is not under GPL). Since it was not maintained since 1997, it has not kept pace with the modern Web or modern computer systems in even an elemental sense; for example, it breaks under current versions of libpng, it does not support UTF-8 or Unicode, and it does not know what to do with character sets in MIME types (treating them as binary files and essentially making those pages unviewable).

To incorporate these and other fixes, I spun off 2.7b5, the last version of Mosaic released for Unix platforms, into my own Mosaic-CK branch to mark it as distinct. I also wanted to add support for my own systems and other operating systems that the original Mosaic did not build on, but to also preserve the original feel of Mosaic as a historical model on modern computing environments.

Mosaic-CK is not the only branch of Mosaic that is still being developed; VMS Mosaic is still being maintained for OpenVMS systems.

What's different about Mosaic-CK?

VMS Mosaic is designed to be a very evolved Mosaic with many modern features and a greatly augmented rendering core. (George would love it if you tried to build it on other OSes, too -- don't be scared by those three letters V-M-S.)

Mosaic-CK, on the other hand, is consciously a two-headed beast: by default a basic, functional browser, but also designed to serve as an educational and historical simulation. If you use the default alternative renderer, then you get a standards-aware browser that improves on Mosaic with UTF-8 and Unicode partial support, better layout and extended HTML parsing capabilities. If you use the classic renderer, however, you see the page almost exactly as the original Mosaic would have seen it, but in both renderers getting the benefits of updated, current OS integration, more robust network code and better protocol support: the best of both worlds. And you can switch rendering on the fly (under Options, Use Classic Renderer).

As the early days of the Internet and World Wide Web become more obscure and ill-remembered, Mosaic-CK's classic renderer preserves the feel and style of those distant, more simple times, while simultaneously with its enhanced alternative renderer coming closer and closer to its goal of "Lynx with graphics" -- a GUI and built-in image support, but a fast, basic HTML core that views pages in an efficient, utilitarian text-based manner. This is what sets Mosaic-CK apart from other browsers and Mosaic forks today.

Will it build on {Linux,*BSD,Mac OS X,...}?

The current version builds on Mac OS X, Linux and probably others since the changes were more for gcc than anything specific to these OSes. Still, there is no guarantee it will run on other contemporary operating systems and I'm working on porting it to them too, but they also already have access to current browser software, so preserving back compatibility for older machines right now is more important. The only reason I did a Mac OS X build right off the bat is that testing is a lot quicker on my G5, which helps to preserve my sanity. Because I know that Common Desktop Environment has Motif, CDE systems have priority simply because it's less work.

Binary releases of Mosaic-CK

It is my plan to release, where reasonable or possible, binaries for the supported architectures. However, you should consider building it from scratch yourself (see below), just in case.

Mac OS X (Universal Binary, 10.4+)
This version includes MotifMacLauncher, a shell that puts the Mosaic app in your dock, starts X11.app if it's not already running, and allows you to switch to and from the app as if it were a regular Mac application. Thanks to Eric Brown for the icon!
You must have X11 for OS X installed first (on your OS X CDs, or in /Applications/Utilities), and then install the Mac version of OpenMotif 2.1.31 or higher for your version of OS X. Although OpenMotif only has downloads for 10.4 and 10.5, the 10.5 version will work on 10.6. OpenMotif should be installed to its default location in /usr/OpenMotif (i.e., use the provided Installer package). Then, simply double click the executable. See the Readme file for more. Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard are supported, on Intel and PowerPC.
Mosaic-2.7ck9-UB.zip (1.1MB)
Power MachTen
Because this relies on how much memory you have, and because certain prerequisites are strongly recommended, I'm not providing MachTen binaries on purpose to force people to update their installations. Update your environment, then build from source (see below). Think of it as tough love.

How to build Mosaic-CK

You will require the following libraries and tools to build Mosaic-CK:

X11R5 or higher. It will not run on X11R4 or previous versions.
Motif X libraries, 1.2 or higher. You can also use OpenMotif 2.1.31 or higher, and possibly even older versions. If you are on a system with Common Desktop Environment, such as HP/UX or AIX, you have this already. MachTen also includes Motif built-in. If you are building on Mac OS X, use the Mac versions from IST (10.4 for 10.4, or 10.5 for 10.5 or 10.6).
libjpeg (6b or higher)
zlib (1.2.3 or higher) (prerequisite for libpng)
libpng (1.2.35 or higher)
A working C compiler and make (tested on gcc 2.7 and up)

The Makefile suite is designed to be system-specific: simply

make architecture

will start the process. Although Mosaic-CK contains all the historical architectures that Mosaic formerly supported, I am supremely doubtful it will build as it did on all of them, so they are unsupported. If it works for you, great -- tell me and I will promote those architectures. Right now, only the following targets are supported:

make ppcmt (Power MachTen)
This port builds a statically-linked Mosaic, and assumes that libpng and libjpeg are installed in /opt and zlib is installed in /usr (see installing recommended base packages for MachTen and building libpng and libjpeg in MachTen). At least 256MB of RAM is required to run Mosaic-CK in its default form due to its stack space requirement. If you want to run it on a system with less memory, you will need to reduce the -Xlstack setting in makefiles/Makefile.ppcmt by a corresponding amount. At least 32MB of stack is required for Mosaic-CK to even start (it will crash if you set this too low), so it will not run well (if at all) on systems with less than 64MB of RAM.
For some sites the default stack space is still not enough. If you get random crashes on sites you visit frequently, recompile it with a bigger -Xlstack.
IMPORTANT! Starting with ck9, when you unpack the tarball, exclude the motifmaclauncher/ directory -- this can cause MachTen to crash! Use a command line such as
```
tar -xv --exclude '*/motifmaclaunch*' -f mosaic27ck9.tar
```
make osx (Mac OS X)
This port builds a partially statically-linked Mosaic. It requires OpenMotif 2.1.31+ to be installed to /usr/OpenMotif, and expects zlib, libpng and libjpeg to be installed in standard .a libraries to /usr/local (i.e., libraries in /usr/local/lib, include files to /usr/local/include, etc.). It is known to run on 10.4+, but there is nothing to prevent it from running on Panther, or even Jaguar if you still have the X11 Beta. It probably will not run on 10.1 or earlier.
This build script builds for your home architecture only (i.e., it does not make a Universal binary). If you want to make a Universal executable, you can use make uosx, but this requires that the .a libraries for libz, libpng and libjpeg also have been built as Universal which does not happen by default. I don't recommend this to the casual builder. If you want information on this, send me E-mail.
Versions ck9 and later have a motifmaclauncher/ folder containing an Xcode project for building the shell application package. It can be built with Xcode 2.5 or later. Build the raw executable first, then build the Xcode project; it will incorporate the executable into its app package to make a distributable stand-alone unit.
make linux
This port, graciously contributed by Jeroen Schot, restores current Linux support; although tested on Debian 5.0 it should work on any modern distro. This port should build a partially dynamically-linked Mosaic, although I do not run Linux locally and you should consider this port experimental. You must have already installed OpenMotif 2.1.31+ or compatible, as well as zlib, libpng, and libjpeg. Chances are your distro includes most of this already. It should compile on any architecture supported by Linux, not just x86. If you build a publicly-available RPM, DEB or other package, I would like to link to it or send people to it; please send me E-mail.

More will be added.

DOWNLOAD SOURCE: mosaic27ck9.tar.gz (1.1MB)

Bug reports and future improvements

Bug reports and suggestions are appreciated, with the understanding that compatibility for older operating systems is paramount -- if your patch requires the latest and greatest gcc or toolkit, for example, it will be rejected. Please wait for me to ask for your diff before sending it to me; drop me a line at ckaiser@floodgap.com and tell me what you have in mind first.

I do, however, gratefully accept Makefiles for other operating systems and will incorporate them no questions asked if no source changes are needed to get it to compile. You should work with the sample ones in makefiles/, copy and modify one to taste and/or success, and then hook it up to the targets in the root Makefile.

Changelog for 2.7ck9

Compatibility changes for the future

Test and build under CDE (has Motif). At least X11R5 is required for this. I tried building it on AIX 4.1 but that only has X11R4, even though it has CDE and Motif.

Improvements to page rendering and core

This is, also, going to be intentionally limited -- if you want it to support the length and breadth of WebKit, you should be using WebKit. For example, I have no plans to make Mosaic-CK support JavaScript or frames. Like I said, Mosaic-CK's primary aspiration is to be "Lynx with graphics." Rendering improvements will be part of the alternative renderer where possible.

Continue to expand UTF-8 and Unicode translation tables (will do for sure, up to a point)
Improve proxy support even more (fix SOCKS, for one thing). (will do for sure)
Allow scrolling to a fragment (probably will do)
Extend table support (might do in a limited sense)
Very limited CSS/DOM for selecting colours, etc. (maybe)
Fix SSL (maybe)

Send love, kindly bug reports, Pink Floyd LPs and rare Commodore computers to ckaiser@floodgap.com.

Cameron Kaiser