Since when I played Fallout III for the first time I have always wanted my terminal to look like those old jittery CRT screens that you loved in the game. Sadly there was nothing like that on Linux… Till I decided to make one myself!
In the last six months I dedicated some of my spare time to create a terminal emulator which had to look that way, but also had to be customizable and reasonably lightweight. Now the project is near completion I want to share with everyone the result!
The application is written using QtQuick 5.2 and uses as engine the Konsole QML port made by Canonical (https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-terminal-dev/ubuntu-terminal-app/plugin).
If you are a graphical designer and you want to help the project feel free to contact me. I’m quite bad with gimp and I would be really glad if someone created a couple of frames and a good icon for the terminal.
Source code, build and install instructions (for Ubuntu 14.04 and Arch) are available here: https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term
Test it and let me know what you think… Cheers!
Swordfish's Labs 
It works great! I hope it will support typing sounds someday. 🙂 thanks!
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Awesome.
Keep working on this.
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I’d be great to have easy to use solution to build own themes, I’d love to prepare Amiga Workbench 1.3 and 3.0 cli theme. — https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=992&q=amiga+workbench+cli&oq=amiga+workbench+cli&gs_l=img.3…277.4619.0.4860.14.8.0.3.3.0.496.607.0j1j4-1.2.0….0…1ac.1j4.49.img..12.2.606.FY8eWt-mFYY&gws_rd=ssl
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I’m sorry but I don’t think this is feasible; if you mean change the color and the fonts to match the one used on the Amiga is reasonable and easy (just set the terminal as you wish and click on store to profile), using something like the workbench would mean writing an emulator for that specific platform and that would basically be a completely different project.
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No, no, I don’t mean whole WB but only the Cli (terminal) that is running through WB 30 and WB 31 sessions. That means fonts, colours, cursor and maybe also maybe graphical borders, gadgets if those someday possible.. WB13 – http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/ks14_4.gif WB30 – http://stiggyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/workbench-v3_007.png
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Yeah, that sounds doable and a very good idea. Thank you for your feedback!
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I’m glad to hear that. 🙂 you’re term looks really great. Also as I mentioned before, typing sounds would be aslo great like for example in this Atari terminal — http://youtu.be/_vK84lvwQwo
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Great work !
Cheers 😀
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Hi,
This looks amazing, but I’m being a dunce at trying to get it to work. I’ve followed the installation guide, but when tryinging to run it I get the following error:
loadAllColorSchemes
QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format.
QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format.
qmlscene: ../../../../../../src/gallium/drivers/svga/svga_pipe_misc.c:117: svga_set_framebuffer_state: Assertion `fb->zsbuf->width == fb->cbufs[i]->width’ failed.
./cool-old-term: line 4: 13015 Aborted (core dumped) qmlscene -I imports app/main.qml
I’m running Ubuntu 14.04 in a VM. Is this likely to be the issue?
Appreciate any help, as I want this soooo badly.
Thanks.
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Ignore me. I switched off graphics acceleration within the VM and now it works wonderfully. Great job.
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Also another user reported some problems between VM and the framebuffer. Sadly there is little I can do, but if disabling acceleration works, I’m going to propose that as a workaround also to other people. Thank you…
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Got the same problem here:loadAllColorSchemes QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format. QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format. QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format. QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format. QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format. QOpenGLFramebufferObject: Unsupported framebuffer format. qmlscene: Fatal IO error 11 (Ресурс временно недоступен) on X server :0.0.
Notebook Compaq nc6320, Intel graphics, Xubuntu 14.04
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This problam has been fixed some days ago. I think you can reenable the acceleration. 😀
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Hi!
Really cool term!) Could you tell me what music is on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfXwkcHLlI0#t=17?
This music perked up my mood this everning! 🙂
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Glad you like it. The song is called “Proctor” by “Topher Mohr and Alex Elena”. I just got that from the free songs offered by Youtube.
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This is awesome!!!
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I wonder if this can be used by, say, Kubuntu? I saw Konsole in the technology stack, but realized that it has been appropriated for Ubuntu’s new system.
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There are no problems, you can use it in any DE you want. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it uses Konsole; the plugin is self-contained and there are no dependencies with KDE or Ubuntu.
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Im currently trying to figure out how to build this on 64-bit Mageia 4. I have been hassling the author of Cathode to do a linux version for ages, so finding this was a wonderful surprise ! Now to get it working.
I have some experience with compiling source code, but havent done any work with QT before. The QT dependancy library package names seem to be different, and hopefully compatible with the 64 bit versions,
Ive managed to get it to build without errors (I think), but when I run it, I get line 4: qmlscene: command not found. still working on it. 🙂 Anyone else have experience with Mageia/Mandriva QT builds who can offer any Tips ?
Congrats to the Author ! If can get it running, I’ll definitely donate.
The ability to add sounds as it prints with cursors like old-style movies terminals always did (that rapid beeping as the characters appear) would be a nice addition 🙂
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I’ve never used Mageia, but it seems that qmlscene is included in the qtdeclarative5 package (http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/mageia/4/x86_64/media/core/release/qtdeclarative5-5.2.0-2.mga4.x86_64.html). Probably also the other packages are available with different names. Anyway on the README.md I’ve written build and install instructions for generic distributions (provided that you get qt5 from digia).
The beeping sound might be a little bit tricky because konsole type words altogether and not letter by letter anyway that’s a good idea worth investigating.
Glad you like the project.
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Actually I have never seen a 50 columns terminal. Vt 100 were 80 columns with an option for 132.
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Very realistic old crt. Great work. It reminds me my first 8085 CP/M computer.
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“Missed the mark on an acronym tie-in. Would’ve suggested “Cool Retro Term”, a.k.a C.R.T.”
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1251097&p=27319609#p27319609
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I can’t believe I missed that… That was so cool…
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We’ve added cool-old-term to our Terminal section. Hope it spreads the word
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Utilities/Terminals/
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Thank you!… Some advertising is really appreciated now! 😀
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Hi! Any info about problems with wrong buffer?
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Why not just use
/usr/lib/xscreensaver/apple2 -text -fast -program bash
or
/usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor -scale 2 -delay 1000 -program bash
?
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Anyway it looks cool, so thanks for your work!
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Anybody an idea?
can’t get it running.. 😦
maybe i’m lacking some Qt5 stuff.
./cool-old-term
file:///big/cool-old-term/app/main.qml:175 Type SettingsWindow unavailable
file:///big/cool-old-term/app/SettingsWindow.qml:43 Type SettingsTerminalTab unavailable
file:///big/cool-old-term/app/SettingsTerminalTab.qml:97 Type ColorButton unavailable
file:///big/cool-old-term/app/ColorButton.qml:29 Type ColorDialog unavailable
qrc:/QtQuick/Dialogs/WidgetColorDialog.qml:42 module “QtQuick.PrivateWidgets” is not installed
I installed qt5-essentials and qt5-addons on Gentoo.
Anyway thanks a lot for this. No longer Gl-term will make us cry :))))
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I think you are missing some dependencies, sadly I’ve never used gentoo so I don’t know how the qt5 packages are divided. Search something like qml plugin dialogs. If it helps take a look at the packages lists for other distribution in the readme of the project and search similar names. Let me know if you succeed!
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Yeahhh thanks for the hint… I got it running. The solution was that the package dev-qt/qtquickcontrols-5.3.1
was installed with a missing USE flag. After echo “dev-qt/qtquickcontrols widgets” >> /etc/portage/package.use and recompiling via portage it works!
RIght as i saw compiler messages flying through saying something of QtQuick.PrivateWidgets i guessed it will work, and it does :)))))
Now i will go for playing.. hehe
Thank you again swordfish 1990
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Thank you very much swordfish 1990 for you efforts!
Seems I have a new favorite terminal (apart from terminator).
However there are a few things that you might want to address:
1) Selecting by double click does not work for one and two character words.
2) Sometime double click selects the word in the line above because of a mouse offset.
3) Trying to select text in the scrolled back area causes a jump to the end (without selecting anything).
4) Going full screen sometimes causes a shifted ghosting double image; work around is to leave and re-enter full screen.
5) In full screen with disabled menubar there is still a 2px part left on the whole top of the window , which is very annoying with a bright color window theme. This is a real style breaker!
6) I would appreciate very much, if you add the preferences to the right-click menu, or add a hotkey.
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I’d love to see this in a ppa so we could just install a DEB from APT-GET 🙂
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For someone who has lived that time, it is impossible not to associate the use of the terminals with the background sound Computer!… http://www.sonidos-gratis.com/disco-rigido-leyendo-y-escribiendo-1262203670 (free)
Be interesting to add this item to the list of program options. 😉
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Is it possible to port to windows ? What would I need to start ?
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In theory it is possible since Qt are multiplatform, but it’s not going to be a stroll in the park; There is already an issue open in github https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term/issues/40 (no activity so far). I’ve personally never used applications like this under windows so I’ve no idea how to help, but if you manage to build it under windows (maybe using cygwin) I will accept everything upstream.
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I think its a good idea , im think im use in my work , only install win 7 in work , looks awesome!
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Reblogged this on altoidnerd science and commented:
Just wow. Too bad its not arch.
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Dude. Is fucking awesome.
The last update with the bidn of ctrl make really usefull (and hispter). I really want to know/learn more c++ to help you.
Good job, nice work and keep rocking.
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This is really great!
But i am running kali linux and is there any way i can install it there?
Thank you in advance.
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Thank you…
Yes, it should work. The only requirement is Qt 5.2 (or newer). Just follow the instructions here (https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term). If Kali has Qt 5.2 in the official repository use them, otherwise follow the procedure for “Anyone else” posted on the github page.
Have fun!
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