Oh, now, this is cool. There’s been a thread over at arstechnica asking for a full-screen terminal app for Mac OS X, and the guys at that forum unearthed the uber-geeky terminal app “GLTerminal”. GLTerminal emulates a 1970’s terminal monitor, complete with flaws in brightness, warped display curvature, and flicker. It even simulates baud rate lag. And! for extra verisimilitude, the character colors can be green or amber.
UPDATE:Kim Slawson has graciously updated the OpenGL character bitmap and Finder icon for Mac OS X 10.5.
Download his updated version here, but make sure to visit his how-to page because the instructions for getting it working have changed a bit (also, he’s got a great blog!). It would still be the Best of All Possible Worlds if original author James McCombe could be convinced to throw the source code on a server somewhere, but that’s his call.
Hiya, nice app. Something’s wrong with the prefs though, ’cause if I save the settings as default once I’ve set the terminal to display in classic mode, all I get after a relaunch is a big black screen with some green parts on.
Yeah, make no mistake: this app is kind of broken. Prefs don’t save right. Hopefully someone will find the original author (James McCombe) and hopefully he still has the source code to update it for 10.4. The guys in that thread above have just been fixing what they can, but without the actual source code, it’s hard to make genuine improvenings to the app.
Gee, close source software stops you from modifying and improving it. Big surprise. Maybe you should re-implement it so other can improve it as well. Now you’re all going to gang up and suggest YOU LIKE THESE RESTRICTIONS.
funnt, it remains to be seen whether this is closed source software. Someone has to contact the author and find out whether he’ll release the source. This is merely a case of developers not actually *possessing* the source, which has nothing to do with open v. closed source issues.
Think before you type. It makes the words that come out much more sensible.
Ah, it’s good to know that there is really no application so trivial or frivolous that you can’t provoke a rant from a GPL zealot by exercising your legal and moral right to not release it under Stallman’s terms.
CrackWilding, excuse my english as my romanian is much better, it matters not about source availability, it matters if the software has endowed all users with the freedoms set forth by free software. You seem to misunderstand that free software is not just the source code, it is the RIGHT to change, to distribute and to distribute derivatives under the same license.
For instance by modifying the binary and distributing it without permission you are breaking copyright law, you were never given this right. If this was truly free software (or Open Source) you would be endowed with this right and you would know you had this right.
Thus this has everything to do with your so called “open v. closed source” issues.
Doctor Memory, you forget that no one was given permission to modify and distribute modifications of this program. There are no licensing documenation accompanying the program, all you have is:
Note: the application GLTerminal was made by James McCombe. This copy of the bundle has a modified version of the file GLTerminal>Contents>Resources>ClassicTerminalPlugin.bundle>Contents>Resources>VT100CharacterSet.tga in order to facilitate running it under Mac OS 10.4. This is a hack, and should be treated as such. Mr. McCombe doesn’t even know this version of his program exists.
You are not granted these things, they must be given.
Hello. I am the original author of this terminal. It was written actually a few years ago as a side project and it got leaked somehow since I never intentionally released it, knowing that it had a lot of unfinished work.
Given the fact people seem to like this so much, I will try to get time to finish it off and put out a semi-respectable release. Keep an eye on my website over the coming months.
[...] Now gather ’round kids. There was once, and this is many a year ago, when ones monitor would warp and wobble, flickr and buzz. Aye, I say it be true! And now ye too can have a go on yer feckin’ cinema displays and what not. [...]
funnt: It’s not as if the world has not already reached the saturation point of FSF zealots.
Truly free software would not include encumbering, viral licenses like the GPL.
In this case, it’s not clear that anybody should care. Thanks to Mr. McCombe for offering to finish it up — whether or not he decides to “free” the source (whatever that means).
[...] There is a sweet OS X Terminal app floating around that mimics old 70s glass terminals with screen warp, amber text and brightness glitches and everything. Pretty cool even for a relative n00b like myself who didn’t ever have to use any of that hooey. I did use the old Apple IIs though and they had those nasty green screens with the wicked burn in. Mmm… fifth grade computer class. [...]
[...] ldopa.net » archive » glterminal so fantastically geeky I almost died by Black Rim Glasses | posted in running Trackback URL | Comment RSS Feed Tag at del.icio.us | Incoming links [...]
The last time I saw this app, it was on the computers that Apple had set up for public access at the OSCON convention in Portland a few years ago. I researched it afterwards and couldn’t find any information about the original developer and, at the time, the only mention of it I could find anywhere was a blog posting from another person who had seen it at OSCON. Great to know that it’s working in 10.4.
evil bob, your American use of the word freedom is a freedom where everyone else suffers because of you, your freedom is the freedom to take, close, and abuse. The FSF freedom is for the community, for everyone, not just you in your company. FSF Freedom means we play by the same rules, we trade alike and we, the community, always have freedom to what we will to derivatives of property “gifted” to the community.
There isn’t a lot of point to your pro-BSD/LGPL post other than one side arguing freedom of the individual is more important freedom of community. Which in turn is a very American arguement to get into.
The fact that you use the word VIRAL to describe GPL code shows that you do not understand how the GPL works. You choose to make derivatives, it doesn’t just happen by accident.
Ah, the model 40 - teletype - that was a GREAT
terminal, nice wide screen and all
how about an ann arbor ambassador? those (available
in both modes) were great, although maybe the old eyes
would not be able to read the tiny font these days!
[...] para esses, senhoras e senhores, apresento o glterminal. podem escolher entre monitor verde e ambar (eram lindos!), o delay que seria provocado pela velocidade das ligacoes e a velocidade do refresh. experimentem em fullscreen para voltarem aos tempos de antigamente. [...]
if the author add the licence term with its software we would know if a modification AND REDISTRIBUTION is authorized !
the author seems to be a kind person and he’s not annoyed by that.
about GPL, no one is forced to do a derivative works of a gpl works
is it so fair to allow people to take works from nice people and change it in a closed products with LESS freedom to users ?
noone can force good and nice developpers to put their works under microsoft eula, gpl, apple licence, apl 2, Bsd, mit or whatever terms you imagine the “stallman” want. it’s a free(dom) country.
about community or zealot : THANKS people distributing THEIR works in terms authorizing YOU to modify, to hack, to REDISTRIBUTE software to ANYONE. Do you imagine how MUCH useful it is ?
thanks them , praises them, be happy, use the good softwares , proprietary ones, free ones, freedom ones, all good softwares and do not be mean.
Part of me wants to go to the local Apple store, load this up fullscreen on all the shiny new Power Macs and iMacs, and watch all the dirty hipsters go apeshit.
[...] Impressionante este aplicativo para MacOSX que emula um monitor antigo, incluindo lag no baudrate que voce quiser, curvatura de tela e glitches visuais. Rodar fortunes nele da ate’ dor no peito de saudosismo. [...]
This is beautiful.. It brought back good memories and gave me warm fuzzies.. Thats a bit scary. Something about the distortion and the flicker. Brings back the days of excited wonder - when these devices were new (to us) and amazing. And the thought that maybe, someday - I could learn to program one of them, and to make them do something !
No one here at LDopa wrote this. We just thought it was funny. Take your TEH GPEL IS TEH GRAET and your OPAN SORES SOFTWEAR SI FRO NERDS arguments somewhere else.
This site serves some very important functions: making fun of Microsoft, Republicans, and Your Mom. Everything else is incidental. So if you don’t have something to say that’s not a) funny or b) something I can’t read at every other fucking weblog in the world, don’t say it. Alternately, say it, then effectively make fun of me for yelling at you about it.
Jochim, go to the prefs and select “Classic Terminal”.
Josh, your comment seems kind of uncharacteristically bitchy. Maybe you and I need to relax and play “Burnout 3″ on Playstation 2 for another seven hours.
December 31st, 1969 at 4:00 pm
January 14th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
App of the year, for sure!
January 15th, 2006 at 6:10 am
Hiya, nice app. Something’s wrong with the prefs though, ’cause if I save the settings as default once I’ve set the terminal to display in classic mode, all I get after a relaunch is a big black screen with some green parts on.
January 15th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Yeah, make no mistake: this app is kind of broken. Prefs don’t save right. Hopefully someone will find the original author (James McCombe) and hopefully he still has the source code to update it for 10.4. The guys in that thread above have just been fixing what they can, but without the actual source code, it’s hard to make genuine improvenings to the app.
January 17th, 2006 at 5:52 am
Why not making a screen saver out of this fabolous app :)
February 1st, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Gee, close source software stops you from modifying and improving it. Big surprise. Maybe you should re-implement it so other can improve it as well. Now you’re all going to gang up and suggest YOU LIKE THESE RESTRICTIONS.
February 1st, 2006 at 1:07 pm
[...] Check out the curved terminal here. [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 1:07 pm
when a winXP version ?
February 1st, 2006 at 1:33 pm
funnt, it remains to be seen whether this is closed source software. Someone has to contact the author and find out whether he’ll release the source. This is merely a case of developers not actually *possessing* the source, which has nothing to do with open v. closed source issues.
Think before you type. It makes the words that come out much more sensible.
February 1st, 2006 at 1:35 pm
> when a winXP version ?
As soon as you’re able to install MacOSX/x86 on whitebox hardware…
February 1st, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Ah, it’s good to know that there is really no application so trivial or frivolous that you can’t provoke a rant from a GPL zealot by exercising your legal and moral right to not release it under Stallman’s terms.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Awesome - now I can type “4 8 15 16 23 42″ over and over every 108 minutes!
February 1st, 2006 at 2:14 pm
CrackWilding, excuse my english as my romanian is much better, it matters not about source availability, it matters if the software has endowed all users with the freedoms set forth by free software. You seem to misunderstand that free software is not just the source code, it is the RIGHT to change, to distribute and to distribute derivatives under the same license.
For instance by modifying the binary and distributing it without permission you are breaking copyright law, you were never given this right. If this was truly free software (or Open Source) you would be endowed with this right and you would know you had this right.
Thus this has everything to do with your so called “open v. closed source” issues.
Maybe you should read up about free software at https://www.fsf.org/
February 1st, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Doctor Memory, you forget that no one was given permission to modify and distribute modifications of this program. There are no licensing documenation accompanying the program, all you have is:
Note: the application GLTerminal was made by James McCombe. This copy of the bundle has a modified version of the file GLTerminal>Contents>Resources>ClassicTerminalPlugin.bundle>Contents>Resources>VT100CharacterSet.tga in order to facilitate running it under Mac OS 10.4. This is a hack, and should be treated as such. Mr. McCombe doesn’t even know this version of his program exists.
You are not granted these things, they must be given.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Actually, you have the right to use and modify any program you own, without getting special permission. See here: https://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html
February 1st, 2006 at 2:24 pm
FREE THE ENUMCLAW 3!
February 1st, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Hey, why not go all the way and add an additional transparency layer that simulates phosphor burn :)
Excellent app! Been coding all morning at 9600 baud with bad flicker and all and loving ever moment of it.
February 1st, 2006 at 3:11 pm
[...] read more | digg story Explore posts in the same categories: Digg.com [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Hello. I am the original author of this terminal. It was written actually a few years ago as a side project and it got leaked somehow since I never intentionally released it, knowing that it had a lot of unfinished work.
Given the fact people seem to like this so much, I will try to get time to finish it off and put out a semi-respectable release. Keep an eye on my website over the coming months.
Best,
–James
February 1st, 2006 at 4:07 pm
[...] Now gather ’round kids. There was once, and this is many a year ago, when ones monitor would warp and wobble, flickr and buzz. Aye, I say it be true! And now ye too can have a go on yer feckin’ cinema displays and what not. [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 4:30 pm
funnt: It’s not as if the world has not already reached the saturation point of FSF zealots.
Truly free software would not include encumbering, viral licenses like the GPL.
In this case, it’s not clear that anybody should care. Thanks to Mr. McCombe for offering to finish it up — whether or not he decides to “free” the source (whatever that means).
February 1st, 2006 at 4:51 pm
[...] Link [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 4:55 pm
[...] There is a sweet OS X Terminal app floating around that mimics old 70s glass terminals with screen warp, amber text and brightness glitches and everything. Pretty cool even for a relative n00b like myself who didn’t ever have to use any of that hooey. I did use the old Apple IIs though and they had those nasty green screens with the wicked burn in. Mmm… fifth grade computer class. [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 5:00 pm
[...] ldopa.net » archive » glterminal so fantastically geeky I almost died by Black Rim Glasses | posted in running Trackback URL | Comment RSS Feed Tag at del.icio.us | Incoming links [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 5:05 pm
FR34K1N C00L!!!
February 1st, 2006 at 5:07 pm
btw, can we get a FRIGGIN SCREENSAVER WITH THIS TODAY
February 1st, 2006 at 5:19 pm
The last time I saw this app, it was on the computers that Apple had set up for public access at the OSCON convention in Portland a few years ago. I researched it afterwards and couldn’t find any information about the original developer and, at the time, the only mention of it I could find anywhere was a blog posting from another person who had seen it at OSCON. Great to know that it’s working in 10.4.
February 1st, 2006 at 5:33 pm
[...] Referer Link [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 6:26 pm
But can it emulate a Model 40 Teletype? ;->
February 1st, 2006 at 6:47 pm
evil bob, your American use of the word freedom is a freedom where everyone else suffers because of you, your freedom is the freedom to take, close, and abuse. The FSF freedom is for the community, for everyone, not just you in your company. FSF Freedom means we play by the same rules, we trade alike and we, the community, always have freedom to what we will to derivatives of property “gifted” to the community.
There isn’t a lot of point to your pro-BSD/LGPL post other than one side arguing freedom of the individual is more important freedom of community. Which in turn is a very American arguement to get into.
The fact that you use the word VIRAL to describe GPL code shows that you do not understand how the GPL works. You choose to make derivatives, it doesn’t just happen by accident.
February 1st, 2006 at 7:41 pm
[...] but nice [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 7:46 pm
[...] https://ldopa.net/2006/01/14/glterminal/ [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 8:26 pm
[...] ldopa.net » archive » glterminal Phosphorus terminal emulator. (tags: cli tools shell macosx apple) [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Ah, the model 40 - teletype - that was a GREAT
terminal, nice wide screen and all
how about an ann arbor ambassador? those (available
in both modes) were great, although maybe the old eyes
would not be able to read the tiny font these days!
doug
February 1st, 2006 at 9:37 pm
[...] para esses, senhoras e senhores, apresento o glterminal. podem escolher entre monitor verde e ambar (eram lindos!), o delay que seria provocado pela velocidade das ligacoes e a velocidade do refresh. experimentem em fullscreen para voltarem aos tempos de antigamente. [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 10:13 pm
intellectual property is not toys !
if the author add the licence term with its software we would know if a modification AND REDISTRIBUTION is authorized !
the author seems to be a kind person and he’s not annoyed by that.
about GPL, no one is forced to do a derivative works of a gpl works
is it so fair to allow people to take works from nice people and change it in a closed products with LESS freedom to users ?
noone can force good and nice developpers to put their works under microsoft eula, gpl, apple licence, apl 2, Bsd, mit or whatever terms you imagine the “stallman” want. it’s a free(dom) country.
about community or zealot : THANKS people distributing THEIR works in terms authorizing YOU to modify, to hack, to REDISTRIBUTE software to ANYONE. Do you imagine how MUCH useful it is ?
thanks them , praises them, be happy, use the good softwares , proprietary ones, free ones, freedom ones, all good softwares and do not be mean.
February 1st, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Part of me wants to go to the local Apple store, load this up fullscreen on all the shiny new Power Macs and iMacs, and watch all the dirty hipsters go apeshit.
February 1st, 2006 at 11:37 pm
[...] Impressionante este aplicativo para MacOSX que emula um monitor antigo, incluindo lag no baudrate que voce quiser, curvatura de tela e glitches visuais. Rodar fortunes nele da ate’ dor no peito de saudosismo. [...]
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:26 am
This is beautiful.. It brought back good memories and gave me warm fuzzies.. Thats a bit scary. Something about the distortion and the flicker. Brings back the days of excited wonder - when these devices were new (to us) and amazing. And the thought that maybe, someday - I could learn to program one of them, and to make them do something !
Thanks.
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:07 am
LMAO, well done! ;-)
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:18 am
Guys, this is awesome! Author for PREZIDENT!!
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:41 am
Great site, thanks dudes
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:31 am
Please let me send you money.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:19 am
Hey! Assheads!
No one here at LDopa wrote this. We just thought it was funny. Take your TEH GPEL IS TEH GRAET and your OPAN SORES SOFTWEAR SI FRO NERDS arguments somewhere else.
This site serves some very important functions: making fun of Microsoft, Republicans, and Your Mom. Everything else is incidental. So if you don’t have something to say that’s not a) funny or b) something I can’t read at every other fucking weblog in the world, don’t say it. Alternately, say it, then effectively make fun of me for yelling at you about it.
Thank you,
-The Mgt.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:26 am
Aloha!
Has anybody got it to work on an iBook G4 w. MacOS 10.4?
I only get a white screen.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Jochim, go to the prefs and select “Classic Terminal”.
Josh, your comment seems kind of uncharacteristically bitchy. Maybe you and I need to relax and play “Burnout 3″ on Playstation 2 for another seven hours.
~jeff
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:23 pm</a