NeXTClock

So here is a new project on GitLab called NeXTClock: a small browser-based recreation of a NeXTSTEP-style clock applet from the 1990s. This modern version renders a 64-unit clock face into a square <canvas> using JavaScript and requestAnimationFrame(), with optional scaling from 64 to 500 pixels, because, well, Java Applets aren’t really a thing anymore. Background The original source code of the Java applet came from the Internet Archive. This original NeXTClock applet was written by Rene K. Mueller and is preserved in original/NeXTClock.java in the GitLab project. That applet used AWT, a background GIF, and a thread that updated the displayed time. I used that Java applet in my “GaMMA” home page around 1999, until 2004. Interestingly enough, the original Java version was written almost exactly 30 years ago at the time of this article: // --- NeXTClock, written by Rene K. Mueller <kiwi@the-labs.com> // V0.20: Jul 20, 1996 import java.awt.Graphics; import java.awt.Image; import…