Download — RetroGate

RetroGate v1.2.0

Browse the modern web on vintage Macs

macOS 13+ (Ventura) — Universal Binary (Apple Silicon & Intel)
RetroGate-1.2.0-universal.dmg — 7.5 MB — drag-to-Applications

⬇ Download DMG Release Notes

Or build from source: swift build && swift run RetroGate

What’s New in v1.2 NEW!

💾 Smart Cache — Pages you’ve already seen load instantly. The Wayback Machine is a non-profit. Cache responsibly.
📦 Capsules — Bundle archived pages into .retrogate-capsule files. Like mixtapes, but for websites that no longer exist.
🔍 Full-Text Search — SQLite FTS5 with Porter stemming over every page you’ve cached. You can finally find that HyperCard page. In milliseconds. From 1996.
📡 Prefetch — Paste a list of URLs, RetroGate warms the cache at one request per second. Polite to archive.org. Respectful, like a 1999 web crawler.
✈ Offline Mode — Demoing on a plane with no Wi-Fi? Already-cached pages still work. Everything else politely 404s. Your PowerBook has been training for this its whole life.
📊 Better Logs — Request log and Wayback timeline now sortable, filterable, and occasionally informative. Hero stats up top, because we felt fancy.
⚙ Sidebar Settings — General and Advanced settings now live in the sidebar. One less window. Your 4:3 display thanks you.

Full changelog on GitHub. Upgrading from v1.1? Just replace the app in your Applications folder. Your existing settings survive. Your Quadra won’t notice a thing — until it does.

System Requirements

Operating System	macOS 13+ (Ventura or later)
Processor	Apple Silicon or Intel (Universal Binary)
RAM	256 MB (yes, really — it’s a proxy, not Chrome)
Disk Space	7.5 MB app + cache & capsules (you set the limit)
Network	Vintage Mac on same LAN (or SheepShaver at 10.0.2.2)
Patience	Moderate (the Wayback Machine is a non-profit)
Emotional attachment to beige plastic	Required

Build From Source

For developers who like to see what’s under the hood (spoiler: it’s SwiftNIO all the way down):

git clone https://github.com/Simplinity/retrogate.git
cd retrogate
swift build
swift run RetroGate

Or open in Xcode:

open Package.swift

Requires Swift 5.9+ (included with Xcode 15+). The project has 50 tests across 9 suites. Run them with swift test. They all pass. We’re very proud of this.

Architecture

Sources/
├── RetroGate/         # SwiftUI app + CLI entry point
├── ProxyServer/       # SwiftNIO HTTP proxy listener
├── HTMLTranscoder/    # HTML5 → HTML 3.2 conversion
├── WaybackBridge/     # Wayback Machine integration
└── ImageTranscoder/   # Image format conversion & resizing

Documentation

User Manual

The complete guide. Setup, configuration, Wayback mode, troubleshooting, and existential questions about beige plastic.

Read Online
⬇ Download .md

Architecture Docs

Technical deep-dive. Module overview, request flow, design decisions, and why HTTP/1.0 responses only.

View on GitHub

Quick Start (90 Seconds)

Download RetroGate-1.2.0-universal.dmg, open it, drag to Applications
Launch RetroGate — note the proxy address (e.g., 192.168.0.130:8080)
On your vintage Mac, set HTTP proxy to that address
Browse. Marvel. Tell your Quadra it’s not obsolete after all.

For the full setup guide with PAC file shortcuts, SheepShaver tips, and emotional support, see the complete manual.

Fun fact: This entire download page weighs less than a single modern cookie consent banner.

RetroGate itself is smaller than the average npm node_modules folder by approximately four orders of magnitude.

Download RetroGate