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Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

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Re: Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

#41

Post by naikrovek »

shevy-java wrote: post #31

I'd kind of want a terminal that can be used for everything, including browsing, image display, playing videos and so forth. KDE konsole is good but I don't see any logical reason why I need to simulate 1980s terminals in 2025. Right now I use KDE konsole to either display something on the terminal or start some other program (such as gimp etc...) but I'd like the interface to actually be the terminal in itself, as-i…

Plan9 “terminals” were like that. Create a window, and by default the text shell runs in it. If you have vdir installed, and you run that in the same window, you get a semi-graphical file browser. Exit that and then run games/doom and now doom is running in the same window. Exit that and “cpu” into another machine and run riostart and now that same window that did all the other things now is running a window manager on the remote machine, displayed on your machine. Graphical apps, textual apps, everything. All in Rio windows. Smoothly, too. (It is a very different paradigm so I am not going to profess that it is user friendly or anything, but it does work, and it works well once you get your head around it.)

Re: Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

#43

Post by nemomarx »

catskull wrote: post #40
com2kid wrote: post #13

I used to daily drive this, most of the effects were minimized but I found that a little bit of white noise really helped make my terminal a lot easier on the eyes to read. I wonder if it is related to how some people find that film grain has a pleasing effect. For those looking at the screenshots note that the terminal is incredibly customizable, you don't have to have all the effects dialed up to 11! Sadly bit rot…

I have ghostty set up with this “starfield” shader: https://github.com/0xhckr/ghostty-shaders/blob/main/starfiel... I also have it set up to do adaptive theme, so in light mode the galaxy is mostly just a little noise on the black text but in dark mode it’s like I’m piloting a space ship. Highly recommend. I also documented a few other shaders on my blog here: https://catskull.net/fun-with-ghostty-shaders.html Edit:…

oh that water one is cute. makes me think of old gnome effects? I wonder how distracting it is in practice

Re: Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

#44

Post by alnwlsn »

pimlottc wrote: post #2

People go so overboard on this stuff, the amount of ghosting on the DOS example is insane. I don’t want to spoils anyone’s fun but that’s not really what most screens looked like back then.

Most of them weren't, but some were. If all you were doing was looking at screens of text, a long persistence phosphor could be desirable[0].

I've got one that is inside an Apple II monitor. Can confirm, the image looks very flicker-free, but has pretty bad ghosting if you're looking at anything that scrolls. It looks cool but is pretty rough to do any work on. The other green CRTs I have are barely more persistent than a regular black and white TV, and I've never heard of a long persistence color monitor.

[0] - http://www.trs-80.org/soft-view-crt.html

Re: Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

#45

Post by dylan604 »

rbanffy wrote: post #32
dylan604 wrote: post #8

Just like back in the day, this would cause me to tire so much faster than I normally do. These things are "cute", but for actually getting shit done, they are an annoyance. Does anyone use something like this for extended periods of time? The clarity of modern terminals is a godsend.

When the task is boring, making your terminal look cool helps.

sounds like one might have the wrong job then to me.

if your task is boring, update the desktop's background. if your task is boring, spend hours upon hours choosing which font is better for your IDE/terminal. if your task is boring, you'll find anything to put off doing the task

Re: Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

#47

Post by nurettin »

ok123456 wrote: post #46

Neat to use for a few minutes as a novelty/toy. Not something I'd do daily, though. I remember trying it out years ago, and it would peg the CPU at 100%.

It works consistently around 5-6% cpu for me. (I have gpu drivers installed) Also, it is my go-to terminal for claude.

Re: Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

#48

Post by gorgoiler »

I believe hyprland has a shader that will do CRT emulation for the entire drawing surface:

https://github.com/DemonKingSwarn/retro-hyprland

I haven’t used it and have no idea if it works. Now that my eyes are shot I don’t mind losing fidelity for a bit of atmospherics when doing some casual computing (eg checking email with Pine like it’s 1999.)

If I weren’t so lovingly tied to niri I would like to give this shader a go. Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.

Re: Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs

#50

Post by acuozzo »

dboreham wrote: post #27
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #11

Side question, was there a reason early CRT screens were amber? Or was this perhaps maybe downstream of PLATO & the first plasma (and touch) screens being a Friendly Orange Glow? Recommending Friendly Orange Glow (Doer, 2018), btw. Fun read. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545610/the-friendly...

Amber was fairly unusual. More common to see white or green.

Amber was fairly common to see in US public libraries.
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