$ cat /aesthetics/retro-terminal

Retro Terminal

> system boot complete. awaiting input_

$ cat README.md

> What This Is

Retro Terminal is what happens when you strip the web back to its most primitive interface — the command line. No images. No layout tricks. Just monospaced characters on a black void, glowing faintly like phosphor burning into a CRT screen.

It's not nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. The terminal aesthetic signals competence, directness, and zero tolerance for decoration. Every element earns its place. If it's on screen, it means something. The blinking cursor is the only animation you need — it says the system is alive and waiting for you.

$ ls --characteristics

> Design Tokens

[00]

Phosphor Green on Black

#00FF41 on #0a0a0a. The classic green-screen palette. Text glows faintly with a green text-shadow, simulating phosphor bleed on a CRT monitor.

[01]

All Monospace

Every character occupies the same width. VT323 for display text, IBM Plex Mono for body. No proportional fonts allowed — this is a terminal, not a magazine.

[02]

CRT Scanlines

A repeating-linear-gradient overlay of semi-transparent black lines every 2px, simulating the horizontal scan lines of a cathode-ray tube display.

[03]

Blinking Cursor

A CSS animation that toggles opacity between 0 and 1 in a hard step — no easing. The cursor blinks at the end of headings and prompts, signaling the system is live.

[04]

Prompt Prefixes

Sections begin with $ or > like command-line output. Content is presented as if the machine is printing it, line by line.

[05]

Minimal Borders

Thin 1px solid lines in dim green. No box-shadows, no rounded corners, no fills. Separation is structural, not decorative.

$ cat prompt.txt

> Style Reference

PROMPT.TXT

Black background (#0a0a0a), green monospace text (#00FF41). All type is monospace — VT323 or IBM Plex Mono. CRT scanline overlay using repeating-linear-gradient (transparent 0px, rgba(0,0,0,0.15) 2px). Green text-shadow glow: 0 0 5px rgba(0,255,65,0.5). Blinking cursor animation using opacity step. Sections prefixed with $ or > like terminal output. Borders are 1px solid dim green (#00FF41 at 40% opacity). No images, no gradients, no color beyond green and black. Everything should feel like phosphor-green output on a CRT monitor.

$ diff good_for.txt not_for.txt

> When to Use

// GOOD_FOR

Developer portfolios and personal sites
Hacker and security tool landing pages
Tech blogs and dev logs
CLI tool documentation sites
Cybersecurity company branding

// NOT_FOR

E-commerce or product marketing
Content-heavy editorial sites with images
Healthcare, finance, or trust-dependent brands
Audiences unfamiliar with command-line interfaces

$ history --verbose

> Origins

Before GUIs, every computer interaction happened through a terminal — a black screen, a blinking cursor, and a line of monospaced text. The dominant displays of the 1970s and 80s used phosphor-coated CRTs that glowed green (IBM 5151) or amber (later models), burning text into the screen with enough persistence that ghosting was a feature, not a bug.

When the web arrived, it left the terminal behind. But the terminal never really disappeared — it just moved into subculture. Hacker culture, cyberpunk fiction, and movies like The Matrix (1999) and WarGames (1983) turned the green-on-black terminal into a visual shorthand for technical mastery and digital danger.

By the 2010s, developers started bringing the aesthetic back to the web. Personal sites styled as terminal emulators, portfolio pages that accepted typed commands, and landing pages for CLI tools all leaned into the look. The retro terminal aesthetic became a way to signal "I build things" without saying a word.