NAME

       phosphor - simulates an old terminal with long-sustain phosphor

SYNOPSIS

       phosphor  [-display  host:display.screen]  [-window]  [-root]  [-install] [-visual visual]
       [-font font] [-scale int] [-ticks int] [-delay usecs] [-program  command]  [-meta]  [-esc]
       [-bs] [-del] [-fps]

DESCRIPTION

       The  phosphor  program  draws text on the screen in a very large pixelated font that looks
       like an old low resolution dumb tty.  The pixels flare and fade out as if the phosphor was
       very long-sustain.  It is also a fully functional vt100 terminal emulator.

OPTIONS

       phosphor accepts the following options:

       -window Draw on a newly-created window.  This is the default.

       -root   Draw on the root window.

       -install
               Install a private colormap for the window.

       -visual visual
               Specify  which visual to use.  Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the
               id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.

       -font font-name
               The X font to use.  Phosphor can take any font and scale it  up  to  pixelate  it.
               The default is fixed.

       -scale int
               How  much  to  scale  the  font up: in other words, the size in real pixels of the
               simulated pixels.  Default 6.

       -ticks int
               The number of colors to use when fading to black.  Default 20.

       -delay usecs
               The speed of the terminal: how  long  to  wait  between  drawing  each  character.
               Default 50000, or about 1/20th second.

       -pty    Launch  the  sub-program  under a PTY, so that it can address the screen directly.
               This is the default.

       -pipe   Launch the sub-program at the end of a pipe: do not  let  it  address  the  screen
               directly.

       -program sh-command
               The command to run to generate the text to display.  This option may be any string
               acceptable to /bin/sh.  The program will be run at the end of a pty or  pipe,  and
               any characters that it prints to stdout will be printed on phosphor's window.  The
               characters will be printed artificially slowly, as per the  -delay  option  above.
               If the program exits, it will be launched again after 5 seconds.

               For example:
               phosphor -program 'cat /usr/src/linux*/README'
               phosphor -program 'ping localhost'
               phosphor -program 'ps -e'
               phosphor -program 'od -txC -w6 /dev/random'
               phosphor -program 'cat /dev/random'
               phosphor -scale 2 -geom =1280x1024 -program 'top'
               phosphor -scale 4 -geom =1280x1024 \
                        -program 'mtr www.kernel.org'
               phosphor -program 'xemacs -nw -q -f life'
               phosphor -scale 5 -geom =1280x1024 \
                        -program 'xemacs -nw -q --eval "(hanoi 5)"'
               If  you have the festival(1) text-to-speech system installed, you can have it read
               the screen as phosphor prints it:
               phosphor -program \
                   'xscreensaver-text | tee /dev/stderr | festival --tts'
               You can also use phosphor as a lo-fi  replacement  for  the  xterm(1)  and  gnome-
               terminal(1) terminal emulators:
               phosphor -delay 0 -program tcsh

       -esc    When  the  user  types  a  key  with  the  Alt or Meta keys held down, send an ESC
               character first.  This is the default.

       -meta   When Meta or Alt are held down, set the high bit on the character instead.

       -del    Swap Backspace and Delete.  This is the default.

       -bs     Do not swap Backspace and Delete.

       -fps    Display the current frame rate and CPU load.

TERMINAL EMULATION

       By default, phosphor allocates a pseudo-tty for the sub-process to run  under.   This  has
       the  desirable  side  effect  that  the  program  will  be  able  to use ioctl(2) to fetch
       information about terminal parameters and  window  size,  which  many  programs  (such  as
       top(1))  need  to  run  properly.  phosphor will also set the environment variable TERM to
       vt100 in the child process.

       Any characters typed on the phosphor window will  be  passed  along  to  the  sub-process.
       (Note  that  this only works when running in "window" mode, not when running in -root mode
       under xscreensaver.)

ENVIRONMENT

       DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.

       XENVIRONMENT
               to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources  stored  in
               the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

       TERM    to inform the sub-process of the type of terminal emulation.

SEE ALSO

       xscreensaver(1),     xscreensaver-text(1),     fortune(1),    apple2(6x),    starwars(6x),
       fontglide(6x), ljlatest(6x), dadadodo(1), webcollage(6x), driftnet(1) EtherPEG, EtherPeek,
       console_codes(4).

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 1999 by Jamie Zawinski.  Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell
       this software and its documentation  for  any  purpose  is  hereby  granted  without  fee,
       provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright
       notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation.  No  representations
       are  made  about the suitability of this software for any purpose.  It is provided "as is"
       without express or implied warranty.

AUTHOR

       Jamie Zawinski  <jwz@jwz.org>,  27-Apr-99.   Pty  and  vt100  emulation  by  Fredrik  Tolf
       <fredrik@dolda2000.com>.