Cool-retro-term: A terminal emulator which mimics the old cathode display • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by edkennedy » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

peatmoss wrote: 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…

Check out the video art people have been making with old Vectrex game consoles and modular synthesizers. http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69637

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

#72

Post by peatmoss » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 3:07 PM UTC

fuzzix wrote: post #38

peatmoss wrote: 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.

Without any reasonable understanding of what amount of light results in eye damage, I find this plausible. My reaction to seeing Asteroids for the first time in many years was to try and draw comparisons to other things. I ruled out welding light as being far too bright, but the comparison did suggest itself.

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

#73

Post by arrogant » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 3:33 PM UTC

peatmoss wrote: 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…

I played with an old Asteroids Deluxe machine just last weekend! They have one at Barcade in Manhatten on West 24th.

The vector display sits face up in the bottom of the cabinet, and the game is reflected on a one-way mirror set up in front of a backdrop. Those super-bright vector graphics are even more impressive when they look like they're floating!

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

#74

Post by JohnTHaller » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 3:46 PM UTC

digisign wrote: post #9

peatmoss wrote: 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…

Asteroids was a vector game, interesting technology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_%28video_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_monitor

It is. It was only 2 colors, but it was high resolution, especially compared to other screens at the time. There's one in my Vectrex sitting near my desk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex

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

#75

Post by lawlessone » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

techrat wrote: post #33

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

Is it all on the CPU? could they not have used shaders?

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

#76

Post by VikingCoder » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 5:09 PM UTC

I would really like to do something like this in HTML5 + WebGL for some retro game ideas I have. Like, even doing this with a Z-Machine interpreter (Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc.) would be fun.

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

#77

Post by Gracana » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #37

Gracana wrote: 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)

The curvature is fine, mostly what seems off to me is the amount of "noise."

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

#78

Post by Gracana » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #31

Gracana wrote: 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!

Thanks! Yeah, I bought it as a refurbished unit and the company that did it does a nice job.

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

#79

Post by thrownaway2424 » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: 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/

I'd love to know if the authors of this thing were unaware of the 15-year-old phosphor hack, or if they were inspired by it.

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

#80

Post by alricb » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 5:31 PM UTC

digisign wrote: post #9

peatmoss wrote: 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…

Asteroids was a vector game, interesting technology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_%28video_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_monitor

Another use of vector graphics is in older aircraft displays, where the writing and lines would be rendered that way, sometimes with raster scanning for the artificial horizon.