[HN Gopher] QuakeNotch: Quake Terminal on your MacBook's notch
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QuakeNotch: Quake Terminal on your MacBook's notch
Author : rohanrhu
Score : 55 points
Date : 2025-07-20 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (quakenotch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (quakenotch.com)
| pityJuke wrote:
| No comment on the app, but the website was not scrolling smoothly
| on my iPhone 15 Pro.
| disconcision wrote:
| it brought my 16-core desktop with 24gb GPU to a crawl, perhaps
| the only time a website has done that. impressive tbh
| badlucklottery wrote:
| Same with Chrome on desktop.
|
| There's an animated background element with shooting stars that
| seems to be updating per-pixel. The more pixels it draws, like
| for a high res screen, the slower the page seems to render. I
| deleted that element and it scrolled smoothly.
| 0-R-1-0-N wrote:
| My iPhone 13 almost overheated...
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| "Huh let's what everyone talking about!"
|
| _opens site, phone begins roasting_
|
| "I don't know what I expected."
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| It really is so instant and oddly enough I don't know if I
| remember the last time a site roasted my phone in this way.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Yeah I started to literally feel the heat in my fingertips and
| had to eject!
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Odd, I see no performance problems at all on Firefox on Linux,
| this must be a Blink/Webkit thing.
| trostaft wrote:
| I doubt it, since I saw it on my firefox+linux machine.
| Perhaps hardware? I was using AMD CPU + graphics.
| PokemonNoGo wrote:
| Ha! Pretty neat actually for the novelty. Sadly i don't have an
| iPhone. I've had a Quake terminal on my setup for now 20 years at
| first because it was oh so cool but now it's so ingrained in my
| flow i feel lost without one...
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| This won't work for iPhones. It requires osx.
| staplung wrote:
| Expectation: "Quake terminal" implies playing Quake, possibly in
| some Asciinema-type way. Maybe just starting the built-in Quake
| terminal without the game-play.
|
| Reality: a regular terminal that starts in the notch and expands
| to normal window.
|
| I guess it's somehow based on the terminal that was in Quake but
| that was only really used for issuing quake commands, not really
| for being a posix-compliant, VT-100 compatible terminal.
|
| [Update: it was quickly pointed out that "Quake terminal" is a
| term of art for one line terminal that can easily expand. I am a
| heavy terminal user but genuinely did not know that term was
| commonplace. Grumpiness retracted.]
| coolsunglasses wrote:
| "Quake terminal" has been a term of art for a regular terminal
| that drops down from the top of the screen like the terminal in
| Quake did for the last 20-22 years. I remember this being a
| thing when I started using Linux back then.
|
| https://github.com/Guake/guake
|
| https://babbagefiles.xyz/quake-drop-down-terminal-history/
|
| Yakuake, Kuake (2003), etc.
| staplung wrote:
| Oh, interesting. Surprised that I didn't already know that.
| Perhaps every time I encountered the term "quake terminal" I
| just assumed it literally meant the the Quake terminal
| proper.
|
| I'll let my original comment stand since it seems likely that
| at least some others will have the same impedance mismatch as
| I did.
|
| In any case, thanks for pointing it out.
| DrewRWx wrote:
| No worries, mate! When the popular narrative is "you can
| run Doom on a pregnancy test" your blind spot tracks.
|
| By the bye, I know Foone hates their threads being posted
| here, so I won't, but I absolutely adore their hardware and
| software finagling. It's also made me a better developer!
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think the much more common name is the console? I never
| heard about a Quake "terminal" tbh. It has always been the
| console to input console command.
| numpad0 wrote:
| TIL and TIL Windows Terminal supports it, and by default it
| uses tilde key like the real one that's not available in my
| keyboard. pain.
| nottorp wrote:
| Interesting. Pretty sure it was called the 'console' in
| Quake. Guess it's a microscopic step from 'console' to
| 'terminal'.
| WeZzyNL wrote:
| I think this kind of functionality has been called "Quake
| Terminal" for quite some time now...
| jamesnorden wrote:
| It's a "Quake-style terminal", much like Guake or Yakuake, no
| need to be pedantic.
| kgen wrote:
| Totally agree, I even grew up in the quake/dn3d era and wasn't
| familiar with the term either!
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, never heard the term "quake terminal" before, and I used
| to play Quake and use Yakuake. Even in Quake it was always the
| console, never the terminal, because _it wasn 't a terminal_.
| mproud wrote:
| You're not the only one!
|
| I figured this was the natural evolution of "hacking random
| device to be able to play DOOM" to "hacking the notch on my
| computer to play Quake."
| steele wrote:
| Those of you that enjoy iTerm2, it can do this.
| cwilby wrote:
| Thanks! Just learned about hot key windows.
|
| https://www.karam.io/blog/2018/turning-i-term-in-to-a-quake-...
| jzellis wrote:
| This looks like fun, but it's very easy to set up iTerm 2 to do
| the same thing. Every computer I use (Mac or Linux) is setup to
| drop down a terminal whenever I hit F12 - full screen, split in
| half, with 80% opacity just because it looks cool.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Back in my Quake days we called it the (Quake) console.
|
| That said, they seem to be tempting fate by using "Quake" in the
| name and a logo very similar to Q1. Especially risky since they
| appear intent on selling it.
| OptionX wrote:
| Windows terminal used the name quake mode for the similar
| functionality it offers and there of course the Yakuake that
| does the same on Linux. Haven't heard of anyone rattling the
| copyright chain about it yet.
| eukara wrote:
| while that may be true, the QuakeNotch logo uses trademarked
| iconography, at least avoid that:
|
| QuakeNotch Logo: https://quakenotch.com/_next/static/media/Qu
| akeNotch.84f1df8...
|
| Trademarks:
|
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75350547&caseSearchType=U.
| ..
|
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75350175&caseSearchType=U.
| ..
| billyjmc wrote:
| I suspect there is a legal difference between offering a
| feature in the style of Quake (and calling it out as such)
| vs. baking it into your App's branding.
| detectd wrote:
| Microsoft also owns id/ZeniMax, the owners of the copyright.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| > The Mac notch app you've always waited for
|
| That's just hilarious :D
| jonplackett wrote:
| That website almost set my phone on fire
| rileytg wrote:
| i restarted my phone thinking something was wrong with it
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| It set my 32 core Threadripper on fire. I've never seen a site so
| laggy and bad that wasn't because of a thousand ads.
| _0xdd wrote:
| I have never heard the fans on my 2021 16" MBP until I opened
| this website. GPU usage spiked to 65% when opening the site in
| Firefox, enough to trigger the fan on this otherwise silent
| machine.
| un1970ix wrote:
| My iPhone, which has one of the most recent chips, is burning
| hot right now.
| Insanity wrote:
| Glad to see this comment. Same happened to my iPhone and the
| website was laggy - was super confused at first..
| vanc_cefepime wrote:
| Scrolling through the site (iPhone 14 Pro) was like playing
| a modern game at 15 frames per second.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| It's the useless canvas element.
| asdff wrote:
| All 12 cores on my machine pegged. Sites like this should be
| studied.
| nerdix wrote:
| Its actually kind of amazing that a landing page can do that
| to a modern computer.
| bede wrote:
| Just watched my iPhone 15 battery drop 2% scrolling for <60s
| ttmb wrote:
| I must be well out of the loop because I had no idea that the
| notch was anything other than a cosmetic trick to hide the
| camera.
| tanepiper wrote:
| $7 for something that can be done for free in iTerm
| asdff wrote:
| Or just a keyboard shortcut to bring up the terminal
| mbirth wrote:
| The website says $14 for me now.
| Aaronmacaron wrote:
| Cool idea! Unfortunately the terminal doesn't really work when
| using fish shell. The prompt is always stuck at the top. Also the
| "artificial" notch is larger than the physical notch and even
| larger than the menu bar which is mildly unsatisfying and I
| didn't find an option to adjust the size.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Meh, just use iTerm2 hotkey window instead.
| addaon wrote:
| I want to love this, but it's basically an aesthetic experience,
| and I have two and a half complaints that prevent me from loving
| it:
|
| 1) It needs an option to be the exact height of the menu bar when
| collapsed. On my system, it's ~4 pts taller then the menu bar,
| which means it intrudes into the chrome of maximized windows.
| Ewww. The goal is to reclaim wasted space, not take more!
|
| 2) It pretty consistently drops frames when expanding on a system
| under light memory pressure. Seems like there's likely a few
| pages that need to be wired to keep it from needing to page in
| too much on activation? Tracing memory accesses on activation,
| clustering those functions (with order files) and variables (with
| linker scripts) to a minimal number of pages, and wiring those
| pages could make this better. Dropping frames is a bug!
|
| 2.5) I don't use my laptop for music. Let me turn off the red
| "note" that launches Music, because (a) it's useless and (b) it's
| really buggy for those of us who have never accepted Apple Music
| terms of service -- full UI lock-up when waiting for permission.
| Instead, let me put something useful there. A CPU meter would be
| amazing! Or even better, an indication of whether a terminal is
| still executing a command / done and ready for input -- not sure
| how to hook this in general, but would be great.
| DrewRWx wrote:
| This is incredibly constructive feedback!
|
| When working on projects that meld digital and physical
| realities, ergonomics and aesthetics become a hyperfocus and
| observations like this are vital for course correcting.
| naoru wrote:
| Thanks, ChatGPT.
| felineflock wrote:
| I thought this was to run Quake on that little black section at
| the top of the MacBook screen.
| arendtio wrote:
| I think you need a Mac to have a smooth background animation...
|
| Just kidding, Chromium can handle it too; it just seems a bit
| heavy for Firefox. But sometimes you wonder why on earth you have
| to add such resource-hungry effects.
| arendtio wrote:
| As a long-time Yakuake fan, I was pleasantly surprised when I
| learned that iTerm2 can also be configured to have a quake-like
| terminal window.
|
| It just does not look as smooth as QuakeNotch :-D
| DrewRWx wrote:
| I have a hammer and am looking for a nail, but every day
| something sparks Marshall McLuhan ringing in my head.
|
| The medium truly is the massage. The physical form in which
| information is being delivered (screen with notch) is beginning
| to work us over on a concept as old as the terminal.
|
| Yeah, Yakuake; TotalTerminal; and others kept the Quake terminal
| flame alive, but now that game UI choice interacts with physical
| reality!
|
| Which reinforces my spicy take...
|
| Spicy take: Skeumorphism is a necessary and probably effective
| guard rail against tech usage unmooring us from physical reality.
|
| Plus, this augmented reality take on the concept is taking that
| idea to at least eight strange new places.
|
| Thankfully you don't see an artistic representation of a 3.5
| floppy representing an app's "save" function yes-and-ing people
| into messiah complexes and public mental breakdowns.
|
| All that being said, I am giving this a spin when my work laptop
| arrives! (Worst case I use the, mostly(?), iTerm2 functional
| equivalent because that worked pretty well for my needs when I
| set it up many moons ago.)
| asdff wrote:
| It makes the notch _bigger_? No thanks.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| it took me a while... i had to search. macs have notches now?
| and people think that's ok?
| asdff wrote:
| Yeah it sucks. I don't think its OK but I am saddled with it.
| You kind of forget about it sometimes and other times it's
| glaring.
| wredcoll wrote:
| Tangent, but when I load this page it plays a video, which is a
| nice way to demonstrate a primarily visual thing, but the video
| has no controls, and specifically no scrubber bar. How do you
| mess this kind of basic stuff up in 2025? Like, you have to go
| out of your way to screw that up, right?
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(page generated 2025-07-20 23:00 UTC)