Cool Retro Term
Version: 0.9 Web: http://bit.ly/coolretroterm
This HOTPICK is designed to melt the hearts of senior IT folks who still remember the days of IBM 3278 or Apple. No mouse, no multimedia, no entertainment; just a hardcore scientific approach and flickering command line cursor on a 'display device'. Cool Retro Term is a fun piece of software which accurately recreates the feel of computer terminals of the 1970s with their cathode tube displays, delayed response and other features. Even the defects of the picture which used to be annoying are carefully emulated for the sake of a ‘true retro’ experience.
Cool Retro Term is based on the most recent Qt5 version (at least 5.2 is required) and makes use of such modern features as Qt Quick with OPENGL acceleration. This makes the application relatively lightweight so that it doesn't slow down the system with all the effects it offers. Cool Retro Term also has decent options to control various aspects of look and feel. The simplest way to switch between different settings is to use profiles; either the built-in ones or your own.
Profiles included with Cool Retro Term present different monochrome displays (amber and green), specific computer models (historic IBM and Apple) and widely known display defects, such as scanlines, pixelation, trembling and random out-of-sync skewing. You can customise the colour settings, default font (Commodore, Atari or Apple), effects selection and performance details. Exploring the Settings tab reveals the impressive attention to detail – most people
“The Settings tab reveals an impressive attention to detail.”
wouldn't expect so many tunable features in a simple program. In fact, playing with checkboxes and sliders in the Effects tab is great research into all display issues that you might observe. The full set enables bloom, motion blur, grain noise, jitter, glow, distortion, flickering and even RGB shift, and you can specify the amount for each defect. Finally, the Performance tab offers texture rendering quality controls and a reflections switcher. Although Cool
Retro Term doesn't offer resolution presets, you can either change the window size manually (the contents will adapt automatically), or change the font size. And remember: this is still a Linux console, so you can keep working while pretending that you’re interacting with M.O.T.H.E.R. on the Nostromo.