Since the very first Neko program appeared in Eighties Japan, the little cursor-chasing cat has evolved and taken on many forms across the world, and
across different platforms. For nearly 40 years, Neko has brought a smile to the faces of countless computer users and has even made its mark outside of the tech enthusiasts'
community, especially in art. While many other Nineties software pets have been relegated to retro computing systems and distant memories, Neko continues to keep on going,
surviving due to its open-source condition, it's simplicity and of course, it's playfulness. While most people outside of tech have never heard of Neko, or Oneko, its popularity
among geeks is rising, and I really hope Neko and it's children and grandchildren will keep on going for at least another forty-odd years.
On this page is a timeline of Neko's history from 1988, when it first appeared, to the modern day. I will update this as new developments come about, so watch this space.
1988
The world's first ever software pet, a small and chubby white text-based pixellated cat that followed your cursor on the text screen as you typed, was created by Naoshi Watanabe of Japan on his country's NEC PC-9801 computer range's MS-DOS command line. According to Wikipedia, the program used the PC-98's separate graphics and text layers to draw a cat on the graphics layer, letting CLI apps run while Neko chased the text cursor. It only moved in the cardinal directions and didn't do diagonal movement, but had the cute motion of pawing at the cursor. It was known as NEKO.COM - 'neko' being the Japanese word for 'cat' and COM perhaps in reference to the command line. The technical term for the world's first desktop pet was "terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR)", and it's limited colouration was due to the primitive graphics computers had at the time - usually with a maximum of eight colours in text mode.
1989
Programmer and now manga artist, Kenji 'Juan' Gotoh, created his own version of Watanabe's concept, adapting it for the early Macintosh PCs (made by Apple, Inc.). His version was called NekoDA. It featured a sprite-sheet, the ability to change the cat's speed and colour, and to change the cursor into prey for the cat; a bird, mouse, or fish. The cat could now carry out behaviours like grooming and sleeping, which made it more "three-dimensional" and natural compared to NEKO.COM. The cat was confined to a window, when the cursor was outside of it Neko would scratch at the borders. Gotoh adapted the graphics to suit the Macintosh's display capabilities, supporting both monochrome screens on classic models like the Macintosh Plus and early colour displays introduced with the Macintosh II series in 1987. His design was to become the default look for Neko until this very day, after he sold the sprite designs to a visiting executive from IBM Pacific at a local restaurant for JPY 300,000 along with a proviso that the cat would be copyright-free. According to Gotoh, the executive told him that if Gotoh did not want to sell the cat sprite design, IBM would make a puppy instead, apparently as a negotiating tactic. Gotoh's program introduced the concept of the cat chasing the mouse cursor rather than a text cursor like on the PC-9801. He also innovated the yawning, scratching and sleeping motions that came to define Neko and its descendants. NekoDA became instantly popular, being distributed through Mac usergroups, floppy disks and BBSes. The 'DA' in 'NekoDA' stood for 'desktop accessory', but it was also said to be a play on the Japanese phrase "Neko da", translating as "This is a cat!". It is thanks to Gotoh's decision to make the sprites public domain, that Neko was able to spread out and diversify into its many ports today, otherwise we probably wouldn't have had Neko at all.
1990
Masayuki Koba brings Neko to Windows systems with his xneko program for X Windows computers, namely Unix and X11 under the GNU licence. Koba's version was said to be able to be used across multiple userstations in a network, which meant that a whole team could share in the fun. The cat could, in essence, be displayed on another person's screen - which must have created some fun and chaos in the staid Japanese offices of the early Nineties. Koba made an astonishing 14 revisions to the code in his mission to get xneko just right. xneko also brought into play a variable speed option for the cat's running movements. The program used an archaic bitmap format known as .xbm (X BitMap). The cat was made up of files such as mati2.xbm, jare2.xbm, kaki1.xbm, sleep1.xbm, awake.xbm, and directional frames such as left1.xbm, right2.xbm and upleft1.xbm. The bitmap list includes separate two-frame sequences for scratching and movement, along with sleeping and waking images. There are also directional grooming frames, named utogi, dtogi, ltogi and rtogi in the source. The cat was displayed in a default window of 320 × 256 pixels, with the cat bitmaps always at 32 x 32 pixels, just as with oneko.js today. However the window was resizable. The program was allegedly very CPU-hungry on early workstations. Koba was keen to get others to remix and change up his software, and received help from numerous contributors in developing xneko.
1990
In that same year, Tatsuya Kato modified xneko into 'oneko' for Unix-like environments including Linux and BSD. The cat could now chase open windows, roam around the entire desktop instead of inside a window, notify the user of received emails ~ even running to the mailbox, and hide underneath a kotatsu (low dining table), and still exists to this day on Linux PCs, and can be called from the terminal using the command line "oneko" and then hitting the Enter key. The cat could also launched from the command line with options such as specifying the cat's name (-name), alternative variants like a tiger-striped cat (-tora) or dog (-dog), or target window (-towindow) to customise its behaviour and appearance. Kato is also believed to have begun the tradition of adding other characters, such as the BSD Daemon and dogs. According to a Usenet post from 1992, Kato disliked the idea of the Neko being confined to a simple window, and wanted it to run across the whole screen, as he felt sorry that the cat was 'caged in a jail'. Kato also chose the name of his port due to 'oneko' reminding him of "o'clock", but later decided that it stood for 'Neko runs Over the window'. Kato introduced the "tora neko" design (literally 'tiger-cat', what we call a tabby cat) and his Linux program allowed the user to change the cat's colours, using special commands.
1991
Thanks to IBM, Neko crosses the Pacific Ocean to the United States. Dara Khani, a Florida-based programmer, ported the software pet to Windows 3 as "Neko Runs Free". A separate version, WNEKO, was also made for Windows 3 by Michael Bankstahl, who based his program off of an X11 version of Neko on a Sun system, and was supposed to have included a black Neko according to archived code documentation. Khani's program had the Neko contained in a window, responding to the movements of the mouse. It also had a settings menu that allowed you to configure the cat. You could change the background's and cat's colour using a RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) -based 'Color' option and also change the cat's size using the Size option. Khani distributed "Neko Runs Free" as 'ThankYouWare' and invited users to send USD 9 ($9.00) as a suggested donation along with a postcard of their place of residence to a postal address.
1991
IBM, a former home computer manufacturer, releases its own Neko version, given the English name "Cat and Mouse", for its proprietary OS/2 operating system. They had previously obtained the source code and sprites from Kenji Gotoh a couple of years earlier. IBM's creation helped propel Neko to public stardom, assisted by its huge market share of the home computing industry at that time.
1993
A version of Neko is released for the Commodore Amiga, one of the epic PC systems of the Eighties and early Nineties. Sadly Neko's introduction could not stop Amiga's creator from going bust a year later.
1994
Cat95, also called Cat! or TopCAT, is created as paid shareware by Robert Dannbauer of Wiener Neudorf, Austria, and sold and distributed under his Software CTD brand's Cat! Lovers' Homepage. It was compatible with Windows 3.1x and later versions. The cat came with miaowing sounds, cat size control, colour options and a background image concept for the cat's window - where users could submit their own pictures for a fee. The meows were recorded from an actual cat belonging to Robert's girlfriend - the cat was named Nigel. Dannbauer's Cat95! site ran for a long time - from 1994 to 2003. Robert's decision to monetise the Cat95 software was a controversial one in the Neko software community, with other Neko creators angered by his profiteering from what they thought should be free to use and distribute. In recent years, Dannbauer started an online business selling breadmaking kits and supplies, alongside a cooking studio in Vienna, Kochatelier.
1994
Humaneko, the Neko with 'a Human Touch' is launched for OS/2 by Eric A. Wolf, and was influenced by IBM's Cat & Mouse program and released as shareware. Humaneko, pronounced as "human neko" replaced the cat with a little person that followed your cursor. If the cursor became still, the Humaneko would get tired of standing around and keep themselves occupied doing other things, rather like an actual person. The software included a novel feature Wolf called 'Run-Away' where the user and the Humaneko could play a game of tag, clicking on the character as he ran around the screen taunting them. The Neko had options for update frequency, step rate and mouse sensitivity. Unlike other Nekos however, full usage of the program required a registration fee.
1995
Neko-like sprites were used for a Macintosh shareware game, Kitten Shaver. This peculiar game involved the player using their cursor to shave cats with different lengths of fur as they ran across the screen in timed levels. The game was created by Nick Ruva from Clearwater, Florida.
Late 1990s
Neko becomes a popular desktop pet among early PC adopters. People ripped the sprites and turned them into GIFs which were often added to Geocities sites, especially those devoted to programming or actual felines. Onekoshima has a collection of 1990s Geocities and archived Neko GIFs captured via GifCities and the Internet Archive.
1997
British university student and programmer David Harvey creates "Neko for Windows" with two versions, Neko95 and the later Neko98 (released in 1998). Harvey introduced the ability for Neko to break out of windows and run across the whole screen, and also to add more than one Neko to the screen ~ having multiple cats doing kitty things at once. Furthermore, he brought in footprints, that trailed after the neko when it ran, and the ability for the Neko to run around the screen on its own rather than be guided by the cursor. He made his software available free-of-charge from his Geocities site. Harvey was also one of the first to add sounds to the software. He also made use of icon libraries, where you could choose from a selection of different cat and other sprites, like Blue Tabby, Clorpoin, the TIE fighter spacecraft from Star Wars and even PacMan. Harvey's download site persisted for many years, although a move from Geocities to BT (British Telecom) Internet was necessitated after the former banned its users from hosting .exe files, probably for cybersecurity reasons. Harvey went on from creating Neko to a number of achievements in the gaming world. After graduating, he became a developer support engineer for Sega Europe, working on their Dreamcast console in 1999. He then took up residence in the Surrey, England town of Guildford where he worked for Criterion Games and then Codemasters Guildford, followed by Lionhead in 2011 and Supermassive Games in 2016. As of 2018, Harvey is a Senior Console Programmer at Epic Games, where he worked on their big hitter battle game, Fortnite.
1997
A second, post-Commodore port of Neko is made for Amiga by Carl Revell, who lived in Maidstone, Kent, UK. He names it "Ameko" and drew inspiration from Dara Khani's Neko. It relies on self-contained windows and movements identical to earlier Neko programs. Revell's first version of Ameko was actually launched five years earlier in 1993. According to the original 'Ameko.doc' readme file, the software operated the Neko as follows: "When the program is run, a small kitten called Ameko runs around within the confines of the program's window, chasing the mouse pointer. If Ameko reaches the edge of the window and the mouse pointer is outside the window boundaries then Ameko will scratch at the window border in a vain attempt to get at the mouse pointer. If there is no mouse movement within a predetermined length of time, then Ameko starts to fall asleep, eventually curling up and entering the land of nod. If the mouse is then moved, Ameko is startled and wakes up. Once the haze has cleared from in front of his eyes, he is off again, chasing the mouse pointer." Revell wrote the Ameko program in the 'C' language. The cat could go to sleep in a timespan from 1 to 3,600 seconds. Users could also right-click the selected window to toggle between sleeping and chasing the pointer.
2000
As Neko crossed into a new millennium, times begun to become difficult for it and other types of screenmates. As the internet became more popular, and people found other sources of light entertainment, screenmates became anachronistic and lost their pulling power. Downloadable webapps began replacing desktop utilities, but at the same time, the web opened new opportunities for online porting of Neko in the coming decades. However at this time, only the prepackaged 'oneko' port on Linux kept on going. Emulation communities kept NEKO.EXE alive while retro computing enthusiasts kept writing "remember Neko?" blog posts. Despite the flagging interest in Neko, Japanese coder Takashi Hamada releases "Neko on Desktop (Mac)" which allowed users to 'breed' cats on their computer. Rather similar to the famous Tamagotchi, these cats could get hungry and sick. You could also entertain and care for them with supplied objects, such as a ball, a milk bowl and even give them a shower. Another feature was a catnip-like plant called 'Nekojarashi' which could be used to attract and bring over the cats. There was also a special futon for cats to lie in if they were ill, so as to recover. Users could also give their cats names, colours and genders. Hamada also prepared a screensaver version of his program, "Neko.saver for Macintosh", with similar functionality
2001
Suzanne Morine, a software engineer and Colorado State University alumnus, publishes the Directory of Neko Image Libraries, a simple listing of Neko versions available at the time. She sorted the Nekos into helpful categories including cats, dogs, other animals, contemporary things, space characters and cartoon characters. She created the directory as to put it in her own words, she was "frustrated by the often crypic (sic) names of the image libraries, and the lack of a directory of any sort for them". In a way Suzanne's directory was the precursor to my very own Onekoshima. Morine also created the very first 'Orange Tabby' and maintained the 'Neko kitty collection' website, which had links to Neko .icl files, the Orange Tabby Image Library, and linked to sites by David Harvey and fan pages by other enthusiasts.
2001
A. Joseph Rheaume develops and publicly distributes Biots, an ALife Java applet life simulation game featuring Neko sprites. The game had various animal characters such as a cat (represented by the 'Clorpoin' Neko), an emu (actually a Chocobo from Final Fantasy IVj), a fox (also an original Neko sprite), as well as various reptiles/amphibians, like a newt and a gila monster. As a life sim, the user could observe the animals be born, move around, eat, hunt and eventually pass on. The applet also had changing seasons, with the trees and grass changing with them. Each animal, called a Biot, had its movements and behaviours controlled by a tiny program called a 'memome' - made up of several 'memes' (not those kind of memes!). The memomes helped control how the Biots behaved and interacted with their surroundings. Interestingly, while Rheaume used pre-existing sprites ripped from the Neko programs available at the time, they also drew their own sprites, both for the Biots and the other natural elements like rocks and trees. All of the Biots sprites were influenced by Neko. Rheaume released several updates for Biots, but by the start of the 2020s, Java applets became obsolete due to malware risks, the ceasing of browser support, and the pain of applet maintenance. Biots can now probably only be used in emulators or special sandboxes.
2002
A port for the PalmOS software for Palm Pilot personal digital assistants is created by Laurent Duveau. Called 'NekoCat', it was included in a suite of freeware applications Duveau made for these devices on his software portal, Aldweb.com.
2003
Greg Weston develops Neko 1.0 for Mac OS X as a 'universal binary' inspired by Masayuki Koba's Neko for the X Window System. They introduced a stopping mechanism, aptly titled Put the Cat Out, to stop the Neko's movements, and gives the user the ability to drag the cat around the screen with their cursor. Weston also created the first ever Neko screensaver, Neko.saver, and Replicat (along with John Yanarella), a version of Neko for BeOS, a now defunct operating system made by Be Inc. A PowerPC version was also included in the February 2000 distribution of Replicat, credited to Marc Fisher II. One readme notes that Weston first made his Neko program way back in October 1997, before abandoning and then restarting it in 2000.
2004
A JavaScript version for websites, Webneko, is built by Gregory Bell, and made available at webneko.net. Bell collected different sprite designs from previous Neko programs and added new styles of cat made by contributors, making them available on his 'Neko Server'. The variety of cats on offer, which came in different colours and themes, like black, green, peach and blue, as well as festive versions for Valentine's Day and Christmas, gave users a pleasing choice to select from. Neko fans could copy special scripts for free from Bell's website to add a cat to their websites. Webneko took off on Tumblr and Blogger blogs, and is still popular to this day. Bell also teamed up with Trevor D'Arcy-Evans in 2010 to release a Webneko app for the brand-new iPhone. Webneko introduced the 'Cat Herding Game', where you could have multiple Webnekos chase your cursor. Interesting fact: the Webneko (sometimes written as 'Web Neko') code came packed with a link to the Webneko portal, and clicking on the cat twice rapidly opened Webneko's site in the browser. Another interesting fact: while most of the sprites on offer were cats, there was one that was a bit different from the others - Moka the brown and white rabbit. I guess he was welcomed in as an honourary cat or something.
2005
In February of this year, Vince Tagle of Malarkey Software releases what is believed to be the very first Neko typing game. Neko Type-R was made for download and use on MacOS X systems. The object of this game was to type words as fast as you could to get your cats over the finish line, before the other team, captained by the computer, won the race. The individually-named cat-thletes were based on the classic Neko and Tora sprites. According to Tagle, Neko Type-R was whipped up in only 14 days as an entry into a racing game competition, "Accelerated" held by iDevGames.com in January 2005. Not being much interested in racing games, Tagle initially ignored the competition, but changed his mind after seeing someone in a forum online comment about racing sumo wrestlers one step at a time by typing in words. Tagle ran with that idea (pun very much intended), replacing the wrestlers with Neko cats. Neko Type-R ended up getting 3rd place in the comp for Tagle. The game was released under the MIT licence as a Universal Binary (PPC/Intel), and allowed up to 3 players to join in. A later update in 2007 enabled users to rename the racing cats.
2007
An American artist, Todd Goldman, is accused of plagiarism after using a suspiciously Neko-like cat character in his Goodbye Kitty art pieces, where a cat finds itself in all kinds of dangerous situations. He was also blamed for lifting other artists' work for use in selling merchandise. He denied the accusations.
2008
Computer programmer Pramode C.E. of Kerala, India, authorises the Asian subcontinent's first indigenous Neko program, PyNeko. This program was built to be used as a teaching aid for the Python language. Users learnt to control Neko's movements using built in functions, which they typed in a 'command control window'. The Neko would then move along squares on a grid next to the window. PyNeko was built by an individual named Unni, who may have been a student in Pramode's computing classes. Unni also chronicled their PyNeko creation journey in a couple of posts on their blog. Fun fact: PyNeko was demoed at a meeting for students and teachers interested in open source software - FOSS@School, FOSSMeet@NITC 2008 in Kozhikode, India. According to Pramode's blog a couple of the attendees not only were keenly interested in PyNeko, one even wrote a recursive function command that caused the program to crash while getting Neko to chase the mouse.
2010
neozeed, a programmer, develops a 64-bit version of Neko, where older Windows versions were only 32-bit. He started off by downloading David Harvey's Neko98 software from an archive of the original site, tweaked and built it under Visual C++ 2008, and then finalised it under the Windows x64 version. neozeed's update of the software meant Neko could now be used for modern-day systems, stopping the desktop cat from becoming obsolete.
2010
A Java version of neko is made by Swiss programmer Werner Randelshofer. On his blog he mentions adapting the cat for a Java applet for desktop with it being displayed on a transparent 'JWindow' and downloadable as a Neko.jar file. The cat could be clicked on in order to close the application. Randelshofer based his port on the earlier "Java Neko" open source Java applet by Chris Parent from 1999.
2011
Aneko, a phone app for Android, is released by developer lllllT. The app allowed you to choose a Neko (cat or other animal) and have them run around your phone screen above other apps and phone elements, with a variety of characters to choose from. A newer version called ANeko Reborn was released in 2025 by Pass With High Score, also known as Nguyen Quanh Minh. Both versions allowed users to submit their own 'skins' for use in the app.
2010s-2020s
Neko versions begin to appear across more platforms, including Arduino mini-computers, Vencord (a plugin for Discord), Spotify, Windows Mobile, and even a multi-directional paintbrush option in the Tux Paint program. From 2015 onwards, open source developers on the GitHub and Codeberg platforms begin creating repos porting Neko to new programmatic environments, such as Go, Wayland and Svelte, as well as reinventing for existing ones like macOS.
2022
In April of this year Canadian programmer Ari creates oneko.js, a new FOSS JavaScript port of Neko, also using the original Gotoh cat sprites, after seeing Neko software on her friend's computer during a screenshare. Oneko.js was named after it's Linux cousin, and allowed customisation of both sprites and source code. Oneko.js took off in a big way, and has now overtaken Webneko as the website cursor cat of choice. The program also gained virality due to its ease of installation, becoming widely used among indie programmers.
2022
In July of this year, the first comprehensive article ever to chart the history and lineage of Neko is written by Eliot Akira, a Japanese-American writer, musician and flaneur for his personal blog. Akira brought to life Neko's development, including never-seen-before screenshots of the 1990s Neko programs, along with an interactive directory of traditional Neko sprite images from the Nineties and 2000s. To accompany the article, Eliot opened a repo on GitHub, containing files and source codes of all Neko variants dating back to the 1988 maiden kitty. Eliot also made available many of the original Neko .ico bitmaps (sprites). Neko was nearly 35 years old by this time.
2022
Frisian software engineer Evert Pot creates jneko, based off of the public domain assets of the older 'oneko' port. Like Webneko and Ari's oneko, jneko ("JavaScript neko") can be added to websites with a simple script code element. Pot also published his own blog article covering Neko's history, using the original research from Eliot Akira, while also sharing his own memories of using Neko software pets from freeware Windows diskettes as a child in 1990s Netherlands. Pot now lives in Toronto, Canada and is still developing programs and software.
2022
Olive (or Oliver) Simmo, formerly also known as Goodclover, creates Bomvel's Neko Archive on indie webhost Neocities, with its design and sprites heavily based on Gregory Bell's Webneko site. Simmo made the site to collect skins for the once frequent Neko software and adapted Webneko cat sprites into their own spritesheets, which were made available for public download. Sadly, the project did not take off and the Archive appears to have been abandoned. Bomvel's site was a big influence on Onekoshima.
2022
Adafruit announces its CircuitPython Neko Kitty with Displayio. Using the device's touchscreen, the user's finger becomes a 'laser dot' for the kitty to follow. The Neko Kitty was built with the Goodclover neko sprites made by Oliver Simmo for Bomvel's Neko Archive, and was designed to be used with Adafruit's PyPortal smart display range.
2023
catflags, a webtoy made by hazel (meows.zip) debuts. It arranges Nekos running left and right into flags with stripes. The cats were displayed using a JavaScript canvas window. There are presets for different Pride flags, so for example, choosing the 'bi' preset had cats coloured in three bands - deep pink, purple and dark blue, the colours of the Bisexual flag. The webtoy also allows customisable URLs where you can change the catflag band colours (using hexadecimal colour codes), number of bands and the density and running speed of the cats.
Mid-2020s
Oneko.js begins to take off on the indie/small web, with developers from LGBTQIA+ backgrounds and from regions such as India and the European Union adopting the pixel cat as their own. The indie web hosting platform Nekoweb adopts Oneko as their unofficial mascot and adds it to their homepage, and Discord client mod Vencord adds a sleeping Neko to their logo. Chrome and Firefox extensions as well as JavaScript bookmarklets featuring Neko come online, and there is a growing number of new Neko variants being created, such as foxes, skunks, Pokemon and anime characters.
2024
Around June of this year, solo indie gamemaker Rakqoi releases KittyToy, a wholesome game combining O/Neko with the hit cosy release Neko Atsume. Built in the Godot engine, KittyToy encourages players to leave out food, water and toys for stray kitties to enter the yard and interact with the player and each other. You can adopt any of the kitties. The happier a cat is when it leaves the garden, the more coins it drops off. The cat sprites, which Rakqoi designed with Aseprite, are very reminiscent of Neko and Oneko sprites, combined with the calm gameplay of Neko Atsume, one of the world's most popular cat games. KittyToy was released solely on itch.io, a popular portal for indie game titles.
2025
Louis Abraham creates another port of Neko for JavaScript, the first to be created with the assistance of AI tools, namely Claude. Abraham developed their own technique, which they half-jokingly called "Nekomancing", to recreate the original Neko98 behaviour with just the traditional source code and a few prompts. He named the project "neko.js" and it is the first Neko that will actually run away from the cursor as well as towards it.
2026
In January of this year, GitHub developer Kamil BuriXon Burek, from Krakow, Poland creates an oneko.js derived script with a creepy-crawley twist. Spideko replaces the cat with a realistic Mexican fireleg tarantula (Brachypelma boehmei) which crawls across the page. Unlike the cat that chases your cursor, the tarantula hunts down cockroaches that appear randomly on the screen (like a dev hunting for bugs in the code). The arachnid leaps onto the roach and the insect vanishes. Sometimes the spider leaves behind a tiny web on the website. Burek designed the script especially for spider enthusiasts. Like oneko, Spideko is highly customisable with the character having smooth transitions, and works on all modern web browsers, except the by now outdated MS Internet Explorer.
2026
Onekoshima, an oneko.js sprite collection put together by British-Mauritian Neko fan Vijay Shah, comes online. Shah collected Oneko sprites from websites across the Web and decided to put them together in a first-of-its-kind collection. To date, Onekoshima is the largest and only sprite collection/directory devoted to oneko.js, with close to 500 different versions recorded. In addition to sprites, the site also contains other resources, such as a vintage Neko animated GIF collection and categorised pages of links about Oneko and Neko software pets/screenmates in general.
2026
Indian web developer Karthickpranav SN brings out O-Nandemo, an AI-built reworking of Ari/adryd's oneko.js under the same MIT licence. O-Nandemo allows users to import their own sprite artwork and send to their friends as shareable links. A controversial function is the recipe tool, which allows you to describe a virtual companion, like for example a grumpy slice of toast with little legs, and generate an AI prompt that can be used with GenAI image software (ChatGPT, Codex etc.). The tool then packs the sprites and generates an onandemo.json file.
2026
The Neko becomes more AI-enhanced with the introduction of NekoAI. Built by Naudy Castellanos of Portugal, this kitty is the first to be augmented with an "real AI brain". Using the classic Neko, other traditional characters, or their own sprites, users can hook up the cat to one of five recommended AI models. The cat can be chatted with and asked questions, give helpful comments and operates its own dynamic mood engine. NekoAI was built on Tauri 2, React 19 and the Rust language.
2026
ANeko Reborn, the Android mobile phone/cellphone version of Neko, developed by Vietnamese firm NQM Innovation Lab, gets a massive update. As part of the overhaul, the app introduces the largest quantity of sprites ever seen in a Neko program's sprite catalogue. The app's official site, aneko.pwhs.app, lists 438+ community made "skins", including classic characters like the Alien, Deedee and Lucky, as well as versions from GitHub programmers, with the vast majority of the new sprites being Pokémon. The Pokémon sprites were all the work of a single contributor, j4nDr01d. In October of this year, ANeko joined forces with the animated Codex desktop pet company PetDex, incorporating 4,876+ community-made pets from that platform for download by ANeko users.
2026
As artificial intelligence rapidly develops, website creators began leaning into it to create a new generation of oneko. Many folks begin using GenAI tools like Codex, Claude and ChatGPT to generate spritesheets off the cuff with carefully written prompts. The quality of the finished sheets varies wildly - from low grade versions with mutated cats and broken pixel art, to ones indistinguishable from those made by human artists. Another new feature (not necessarily GenAI) in Onekodom is the creation of site scripts that allow the Oneko to talk to the site's visitors using speech bubbles. These phrases were programmed into the script as an array (a kind of list). If you go to the Onekoshima homepage, there's a cute colour-changing Oneko that will say things to you as text. You can also pick it up and move it around with your mouse. It can "speak" things that convey different moods: happy, sad, annoyed and positive.
2026
The first truly three-dimensional port of Neko is made by GitHub contributor Rulesobeyer. Named 'chibineko', this neko is rendered in 3D, and features a cute cartoonish cat that follows your cursor. The toon-shaded cat leaves behind a trail of footprints as it walks, and it can be petted, reacting with little deep pink hearts above its head. You can also right-click on the kitty to choose a suitable cat fur colour. The cat was derived from Ari's oneko.js, and like oneko.js, was made available under the open-source MIT licence. Rulesobeyer gave the following instructions on interacting with the cat: "Leave it alone and it gets bored. It sits down, scratches behind its ear, wanders over to the edge of the screen to claw at it, yawns, and eventually falls asleep. Click it to pet it. Right-click it (or long-press on a phone) to change colours.". While other Neko versions use spritesheets, chibineko uses the JS package 'three.js' more commonly used for 3D shapes and effects on websites. The cat moves around in a canvas, as opposed to the 'div' employed by oneko.js. This kitty is surrounded by an invisible round hit area that takes the clicks for pettings and settings. TLDR: Someone took oneko and made it 3D! See our own chibineko by visiting the new 'Chibineko' page.
References
1. Neko: History of a Software Pet
2. Jūan Gotō and his computer Part 4
3. Neko Cat: History of a software pet
4. Le voyage de Neko et la retraite de Kodo
5. 38 years chasing the cursor.
6. neko: the world's first virtual pet
7. Neko for Windows
8. Cat95!, V 2.04c
9. util/wb/Ameko.lha
10. Neko 1.0
11. It's Neko! (3.0)
12. Neko - A brief history and porting to Javascript
13. Neko95
14. Directory of Neko Image Libraries
15. Neko.js
16. The Neko Archive
17. onandemo.js
18. CircuitPython Neko Kitty
19. ONeko - How to keep the cat on top?
20. Screenmate “Neko” in Java
21. FreeBSD Manual Pages xneko
22. A Neko kitty collection
23. Cat!, Version 1.5
24. Neko Version 2.0 "Neko Runs Free"
25. Ameko v1.01
26. HumaNeko - An OS/2 Neko Program With a Human Touch
27. Neko (software) - Wikipedia
28. Neko (software) - Grokipedia
29. chibineko
30. KittyToy
31. ROBERT DANNBAUER
32. The Story of Neko
33. Suzanne Morine
34. TXT.rtf/2000-neko-on-desktop
35. [Neko Type-R]
36. Neko Type-R 1.2
37. David Harvey
38. Biots
39. Biots GENERAL INFORMATION
40. Memome Explaination
41. Why did java disable applet?
42. Go Neko……
43. New Neko !!!!!!!!!!!!
44. Report on FOSS@School, FOSSMeet@NITC 2008