[HN Gopher] Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look...
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Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of
the old CRTs
Author : michalpleban
Score : 128 points
Date : 2025-11-24 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| pimlottc wrote:
| 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.
| Aldipower wrote:
| Damn, now I do not have fun with it anymore.
| dylan604 wrote:
| depends on how the brightness/contrast was set on the tube. if
| someone came in to a screen that was off and did not allow it
| enough time to warm up, it was common to see people adjust
| these knobs in the mornings. eventually, the tube would warm
| up, and things would just be too bright.
| weinzierl wrote:
| The single most annoying thing with these old displays was
| the flicker. Whenever I use one of my real old home computer
| era monitors it is the only thing that makes it unbearable
| after a while.
|
| But I'm not surprised they don't go overboard with that in
| the emulators. They'd probably have to add PSE warnings if
| they did.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| if you're talking about cutting edge CRTs, many of the last
| generation actually beat flat panels for years. Some may still
| in some aspects.
|
| There were plenty of junk CRTs out there used for text only
| display with insane levels of persistence and other issues that
| lead to a very unique appearance. It's also sort of moot at
| this point. The existing CRTs out there that have this behavior
| have degraded over the years. No one makes new high persistence
| CRTs that I am aware of. So it's mostly down to our memory of
| them.
|
| I actually have a flat panel that has over 2 decades degraded
| and now has some weird persistence going on.
| poke646 wrote:
| It's almost like a caricature of a CRT. I can see the novelty,
| but hope that people aren't lead to believe monitors looked
| like this.
|
| I think what bothers me most is the horizontal line that slowly
| moves across the screen every few seconds. It's an artifact of
| recording a CRT _on film_ and doesn 't occur when you look at a
| real monitor...
| rbanffy wrote:
| It could happen in home computers connected through the
| antenna input. I think if power was slightly off the desired
| frequency this could also happen, but we'd need to test.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| 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
| nacozarina wrote:
| this is like looking at a monitor that spent 6 years as a
| security desk monitor before you got it
| ctenb wrote:
| 2023: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36798774
|
| 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30734137
|
| 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413911
|
| 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9093545
|
| 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8399461
| LeFantome wrote:
| Sad that we missed 2024 esepcially since the 2023 guy
| explicitly asked for it. Second comment predicted 2026 for a
| next post--missed it by a month!
| graiz wrote:
| Cool project, love the visuals. Wish it would merge as a plugin
| or something to a project like http://ghostty.org/ while I
| appreciate the visual fun, there are other pragmatic tools beyond
| visuals that are handy.
| Diti wrote:
| Ghostty already supports shaders and effects like this.
| aduitsis wrote:
| It can only apply shader(s) to the current frame I think. To
| produce the crt ghosting you'd probably need access to the
| previous frame (not an expert).
| throitallaway wrote:
| I've tried the shaders in the following repo with ghostty.
| They definitely work. I ended up keeping a cursor trail
| shader. https://github.com/0xhckr/ghostty-shaders
| aduitsis wrote:
| Yes, correct! If you check out
| https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference, the
| iPreviousCursor is available, so it can be used against
| the iCurrentCursor to produce a fading effect. But I
| think the entire previous framebuffer isn't there (yet).
| rbanffy wrote:
| I think the best thing that could happen would be to be able to
| add shaders to windows in Wayland.
|
| When MacOS 9 was a thing, I had an extension called "out of
| context menus" that added options such as "Gaussian blur" the
| the context menus so you could blur a window.
| rootbear wrote:
| It's fun to play around with, but unless I'm missing something,
| it's not possible to specify the size, in rows and columns, of
| the screen, such as 24x80. It's an odd omission.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| Shadow_Death wrote:
| I think it's the blurry text. I installed it once and used it
| maybe twice. I found that I spent most of my time squinting at
| the screen like I needed to put my glasses on. I had to quit
| using it because my face hurt from squinting the whole time.
| layer8 wrote:
| In real life, monochrome monitors were sharper than color
| CRTs.
| rbanffy wrote:
| When the task is boring, making your terminal look cool helps.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| 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...
| Cyan488 wrote:
| The color of the screens is related to the phosphor used to
| coat the back of the screen, which is excited to glow by the
| electron beam. According to wiki, amber was used as an "eye-
| friendly" ergonomic color for similar reasons we use blue
| blocking filters today.
| dboreham wrote:
| In some cases the color was just a filter in front of a white
| phosphor screen.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| IIRC, amber was considered the most eye friendly color back
| then. The cheaper monochrome screens were green-on-black.
| csixty4 wrote:
| The brain perceives amber as a "bright" color that contrasts
| well with black, without the headaches that come from staring
| at white light for hours.
| dboreham wrote:
| Amber was fairly unusual. More common to see white or green.
| acuozzo wrote:
| Amber was fairly common to see in US public libraries.
| indymike wrote:
| There was a considerable debate on the ergonomics of terminal
| colors, where the pseudoscience said green and amber were the
| best... and white wasn't very good. I'm not sure what the truth
| was. Adding a couple of inches to the 12-inch screens of the
| time would have made a bigger difference in eye fatigue than
| phosphor color. That said, there was something magical about
| glowing phosphor...
| com2kid wrote:
| 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 has set in and the project doesn't work that well
| now days. Also a lack of tab support really hurts it as a daily
| driving terminal.
| Aldipower wrote:
| Having the same with audio. I actually like tape hiss. :-O
| catskull wrote:
| 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: I use the "starfield" shader, not the "galaxy" shader.
| Doh!
| nemomarx wrote:
| oh that water one is cute. makes me think of old gnome
| effects? I wonder how distracting it is in practice
| lexicality wrote:
| Bit disappointed that Galaxy is the only one without a
| preview, what does it look like?
| cupofjoakim wrote:
| an image is available in the PR where it was added:
| https://github.com/0xhckr/ghostty-shaders/pull/30
| catskull wrote:
| lol I'm smart apparently. It's not the "galaxy" shader,
| it's the "starfield" shader! I should double check before
| commenting I guess.
|
| https://github.com/0xhckr/ghostty-
| shaders/blob/main/starfiel...
|
| I'm not sure what "galaxy" looks like but it might not have
| worked or shown nothing.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Not quite this extreme, but I usually use the old Sun console
| font in my terminal windows, because I'm an old fart and it makes
| me happy. Someone at work just the other day looked at my screen
| and said, "What the heck is wrong with your terminal window???"
| em-bee wrote:
| do you have a link to download it? or a package name?
| rbanffy wrote:
| It should get a modern version. IIRC, Luxi Mono was close.
| em-bee wrote:
| which is a historic X11 font:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxi_fonts
|
| interesting
| technothrasher wrote:
| https://github.com/NanoBillion/gallant
| em-bee wrote:
| thanks. just found that too, linked from here:
| https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/307356/what-is-
| the-...
| NunoSempere wrote:
| I have a regular reminder to use this every now and then because
| it lifts my mood consistenly :)
| shevy-java wrote:
| 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-is.
| naikrovek wrote:
| 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.)
| rbanffy wrote:
| I contribute to this project (they use my 3278 font) but I think
| the best way to do this would be to have shaders available to
| compositor windows. This way, any terminal app (or video player)
| could tap into a library of CRT shaders.
|
| The only thing missing would be frame-to-frame data availability
| to make persistence possible - Windows Terminal has shaders, but
| they can't access the previous frame.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I forgot I had this installed, thanks for the reminder!
| ok123456 wrote:
| 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%.
| nurettin wrote:
| It works consistently around 5-6% cpu for me. (I have gpu
| drivers installed) Also, it is my go-to terminal for claude.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| 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.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It doesn't quite seem to have the same effects, though. It
| would be nice to see cool-retro-term's extreme CRT effects
| implemented in an all-points-addressable low-res mode. Perhaps
| it could even be made to run as a Wayland compositor, similar
| to hyprland.
| hdjfjdkdn wrote:
| Hacker anylaser de passe oublie et que je suis encore
| fnord77 wrote:
| brew:
|
| cool-retro-term has been deprecated because it does not pass the
| macOS Gatekeeper check! It will be disabled on 2026-09-01.
| blueflow wrote:
| There is a thing that cool-retro-term is lacking: Letters showing
| up on the screen the instant you press the keyboard button.
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(page generated 2025-11-24 23:00 UTC)