I know this is just a toy, but the curvature and saturation are massively exaggerated from what using these terminals was really like. This is really hard to look at for more than a couple seconds. In reality, the old VTxx terminals were much easier on the eyes, particularly the amber ones.
If you right click then you can go to Settings and reduce the curvature and tweak all of the effects levels. I hated it originally also but after turning a few things down and a few other things up (advanced tab "quality") it is much better.
Yes, the Windows terminal effects overdo that too. Sure there was a little blur, but nowhere near as smeary as they make it look (unless you had buttered your monitor or something).
Monitors back then were much lower resolution, so the blur was subpixel. And monochrome monitors or black and white TVs (one part per pixel) were much sharper and clearer than standard color monitors or color TVs (three parts per pixel). There should be almost no noticeable blur if emulating those.
Increasing font size to 16 and decreasing font weight to 'light' helps a bit to get it more realistic, as long as you keep the terminal window at about 80x25.
This is very hard for me to confirm: I don't have any crt close by and the crt's which I used more (late 90's) were already mostly plane.
But I remember big crt tv's. Some of the biggest one's, had a form of "inverse" curvature to mimic plane panels of the time. I clearly remember one whose curvature was not constant over the screen and panning scenes had a weird effect of enhancing its deformities. So, I still think he is wrong even on this second case.
However, it's probably not as extreme as what this does, and when you're sitting in front of it (the photo is at an angle) I don't notice much text distortion.
the curvature and saturation are massively exaggerated from what using these terminals was really like
Depends on how much your company wanted to spend on terminals.
I worked for a chemical company where we had hand-me-down Wangs from a different division that looked very much like these.
This is really hard to look at for more than a couple seconds.
Perhaps speak to your optometrist. When I was back in the office, I used this all day long on a 27-inch monitor with no problem. And I'm a graybeard.
the old VTxx terminals were much easier on the eyes, particularly the amber ones
I remember the amber terminals being marketed as easier on the eyes than the white or green ones I used, but I have no first-hand experience with amber.
I used amber monitors briefly and they were neat because they were different but I don’t recall ever seeing a study justifying the “easier on the eyes” claim.
Agreed. I would really dig this if it was a bit more realistic. I really miss amber monochrome and have had it at the back of my mind to build some css themes to mimick the old monochrome screens for years.
