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Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

github.com

31–40 of 88 posts

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#31
post #16

Looks pretty good! In reality[1] the "CRT effect" isn't quite so intense, but I think that's just down to settings. This definitely has the right glowy and slightly-fuzzy feel to it. [1] My Wyse-55: http://i.imgur.com/7x2JdmV.jpg

That's a remarkably sharp display and clean keyboard you've got there, it looks like it was unboxed yesterday!

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#32
post #6

In a modern world where we backlight semiconductors to produce high dpi screens, it almost feels weird to think we used to fire electron guns towards our eyes. I was always partial to the amber screen. Has anyone recently played with an old Asteroids cabinet? The screen is a black and white CRT. When you fire a missile, the screen effect is insanely bright. I'd forgotten just how intense that was. I can't wait until…

It's interesting that xterm still provides an emulation for the old Tektronix vector terminals. I'm not aware of any software currently in use, besides PAW and gnuplot, which is still using Tektronix.

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#34
post #19

This has been reposted many times both here and on reddit.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FSwordfi...

It used to be called cool-old-term.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FSwordfi...

I don't mind seeing it again, though.

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#35
post #4

Reminds of "Cathode" app for OSX: http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/ it seems they have an iOS version now too that lets you SSH to your servers. Also I believe the demo version would appear as tho the cathode screen was about to fail and get worse and worse.

> Also I believe the demo version would appear as tho the cathode screen was about to fail and get worse and worse.

Correct, which actually makes me prefer the demo to the "final" product, it's really fun to see the display "degrade" over time. And the various sounds are awesome (to annoy colleagues).

Plus Cathode provides configurable line speeds.

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#36
post #20

See also “Phosphor”¹, a screen saver part of XScreenSaver², but also usable as a terminal : /usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor -scale 2 -delay 0 $SHELL ① http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ZWTrl7pV0 ② http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/

Working command:

    /usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor -scale 2 -delay 0 -program $SHELL

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#37
post #16

Looks pretty good! In reality[1] the "CRT effect" isn't quite so intense, but I think that's just down to settings. This definitely has the right glowy and slightly-fuzzy feel to it. [1] My Wyse-55: http://i.imgur.com/7x2JdmV.jpg

> In reality[1] the "CRT effect" isn't quite so intense

By CRT do you mean the "lensing" of non-flat CRT screens or something else? The Wyse 55 is a fairly modern display (it was released after 1988 since it follows the 150 though not sure exactly when), earlier models had more (late 70s to early 80s) had more curvature (and lensing)

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#38
post #6

In a modern world where we backlight semiconductors to produce high dpi screens, it almost feels weird to think we used to fire electron guns towards our eyes. I was always partial to the amber screen. Has anyone recently played with an old Asteroids cabinet? The screen is a black and white CRT. When you fire a missile, the screen effect is insanely bright. I'd forgotten just how intense that was. I can't wait until…

> When you fire a missile, the screen effect is insanely bright.

There was a rumour that people who played on a Vectrex (a vector display home console) would experience eye damage after protracted sessions.

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#39
post #33

While neat, the cpu consumption this is insane. It's not even as bad when I play unaccelerated HD video.

Interesting. I couldn't get it to go over maybe 5% on one core. Maybe it offloads some of the graphics work to the GPU.

Re: Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display

#40

Is the borders around it necessary? Because personally I think that it would look great without the borders. Or is it to simulate the roundness of the monitor?

You can remove the border (and change everything else) in the settings.
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