Hopefully not too off-topic, I have a question: shouldn't we stop using terminal emulators already (i.e. why do we still require emulating the terminal hardware designed in 1970)? Wouldn't a text editor-like user interface be more sensible? (Perhaps, something similar to emacs' M-x shell but more universally adopted.)
Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
51–60 of 62 posts
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#52Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me rephrase, I don't want a huge screen with tiny fonts for my console, the default should be at most 132x48
Isn't that exactly what this patch addresses? Updating the framebuffer console so it's not horrible on modern framebuffers.
the OS/Distro should chose sensible options out of the box, they usually do not.
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate the framebuffer console on most of the systems I have. In some cases, the font is way too small. Changing the font size is confusing, because it isn't clear what size of text you will end up with. And on some of the systems I have, the framebuffer scrolls so slow !!!!! Drives me up a wall. If it takes more than a tiny fraction of a second to display an entire screen of text, that is too slow!!!! Hate it, hate…
Sun workstation framebuffer consoles were like this. Slow scrolling! I'm thinking mainly of Sun-3's and early SparcStations...
even on an Ultra 5 I had, it was slow.
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#55Just curious, but does anyone know a business using OpenBSD in production other than the Pushover App?
An acquaintance is currently building the tech part of his and some friends' start-up, entirely on OpenBSD - PHP-based web front end, back end, Postgres-based database, mail server etc.
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#56Interestingly, some of the newer commits seem to have come from John Carmack. While it's not quite related to consoles, I've noticed that the non-GUI interface to a lot of operating systems often don't get a lot of love. Linux has had a fairly nice boot scroll, but I think part of that is because it's become an icon and as such is part of the public face of the OS; but on macOS for example it's an tiny awful experien…
> you'd think Apple would be the first one to fix this… To be fair, they have one of the very few terminal apps that support double-width/height characters and that passes the VT torture test with flying colors.
I mean, I would think this would just be using a larger font size for their bitmap, no?
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
indeed :O here are the VT100 ansi escape codes: https://espterm.github.io/docs/VT100%20escape%20codes.html Bold, Underline, Double height, double width, etc... are all there. VT100, from 1978.
ncurses gives you all of that in a much easier-to-use fashion.
True, but not really relevant in this context. The fact is that graphical consoles could support all that because, in reality, there was a time they actually did - they were just independent embedded computers connected to the host via a serial port.
In my dreams, when switching to Tek mode, the framebuffer would have a dark green background, the lines would have a brighter green, and drawing would push the HDR for the brightest green it'd be able to do (because to store a vector in a Tektronix DVST, you flash it with a high energy beam). Erasing the screen would flash it light green and there would be no scrolling.
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you'd think Apple would be the first one to fix this… To be fair, they have one of the very few terminal apps that support double-width/height characters and that passes the VT torture test with flying colors.
I mean, I would think this would just be using a larger font size for their bitmap, no?
Apple's terminal doesn't seem to use a specific bitmap codepath - it renders the characters at a doubled size for DECDHL and it looks like it stretches the geometry of the font horizontally for DECDWL.
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sun workstation framebuffer consoles were like this. Slow scrolling! I'm thinking mainly of Sun-3's and early SparcStations...
even on an Ultra 5 I had, it was slow.
Now that I think of it, I have an Ultra 10 rotting in my basement. I haven't turned it on in over 15 years now.
Re: Modernizing the OpenBSD Console
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a moral imperative. :-)
its also alot of effort and consumes more of my limited desk space ;-)
What is desktop space compared to having a proper console? Do it!
I'm personally after a small HP terminal that was nicknamed the "munchkin" for its diminutive size. My chances of finding one that can be shipped here are slim, but from the US you could have a better chance.