Everyone knows the command line is where it’s at. Macs have had it since the beginning of Mac OSX. Windows people are slowly coming around too, with Powershell and Console2.
But what about Unix users. Any love for the graybeards? Why yes, yes there is: cool retro term. I love the jitter:
Oh, and get off my lawn! (H/T: Ubuntu Portal)
Terra Terminal Emulator. For people who rebel against learning to use Screen. We’ve come a long way from the ADM-3A.
I found this program called Cathode that does an incredible job of recreating the experience of writing code on a CRT display, ca. 1980–83. Many was the hour I logged on the Lear-Sigler ADM-3A — in those days time was logged, so you could pay for it. That was incredibly unfair since the I/O (for l’users) was throttled down to 4800 baud.
Check it out. Then give it up, before the ergonomics make you blind.
As a sort of colophon, the code I’m editing here is genuine K&R C, from the Old Testament. There are two anachronisms:
To be fair, I don’t think I ever wrote C on the ADM-3A, or even a VT-100. I don’t think the DECSystem-20 even had a C compiler. All my C was on the VAX, which had HP-2621A terminals.
I just noticed that URS, the company that bought the Military-Industrial Complex-related operations of EG&G, also owns some portion of the old Lear-Siegler corporation. I found that interesting because I used to work for EG&G, and before that, I used to do programming on the ADM-3A terminal. Small world.