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swordfish90/cool-retro-term

★ 25,577QMLAudience · vibe coderComplexity · 2/5MaintainedLicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

A terminal emulator styled to look like vintage 1970s, 80s CRT monitors, with glowing amber/green screens, scan lines, and flicker effects. All normal shell commands work unchanged.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((cool-retro-term))
    What it does
      Terminal emulator
      Retro CRT styling
      Fully functional shell
    Visual features
      Amber/green phosphor
      Scan lines and glow
      Flicker effects
    Customization
      Colors and fonts
      Effect intensity
      Context menu config
    Tech stack
      QML interface
      Konsole widget
      Qt6 framework
    Platforms
      Linux AppImage
      macOS dmg
      Package managers
    Use cases
      Screencasts
      Presentations
      Personal enjoyment

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Record screencasts and demos with a distinctive retro terminal aesthetic.

USE CASE 2

Give presentations where a nostalgic CRT look adds visual interest and personality.

USE CASE 3

Use as your daily terminal if you enjoy the retro computing aesthetic and want a fully functional shell.

Tech stack

QMLQt6KonsoleC++

Getting it running

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Qt6 and Konsole development headers must be installed; compilation required.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice and license text.

In plain English

cool-retro-term is a terminal emulator, a program where you type commands into your computer, but styled to look like the glowing cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors from the 1970s and 80s. Instead of a plain modern terminal window, you get a convincing simulation of an old amber or green phosphor screen, complete with scan lines, glow, and flicker effects. It is purely a visual style choice layered on top of a fully functional terminal, so all your normal shell commands work exactly as they would in any other terminal. The appearance is highly customizable: colors, fonts, and various retro effects can be adjusted through a context menu. Under the hood it uses a QML port of the Konsole terminal widget, meaning the actual terminal functionality is solid and tested. It runs on Linux and macOS and requires the Qt6 framework. You would use cool-retro-term if you want a visually distinctive terminal for screencasts, presentations, or just personal enjoyment of the retro aesthetic. It is available as a pre-built AppImage for Linux or dmg for macOS, and is also packaged in many distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I install and run cool-retro-term on my Linux machine?
Prompt 2
Show me how to customize the colors and glow effects in cool-retro-term to match a specific retro monitor style.
Prompt 3
Can I use cool-retro-term as my default terminal for all my shell commands?
Prompt 4
What are the system requirements to run cool-retro-term on macOS?
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.