5 ms·
Once upon a time, green-on-black was the best thing available, and to programmers my and jwz's age, it was THE FUTURE. But to this generation, it's denigrated
by IvyMike 13y ago
Once upon a time, green-on-black was the best thing available, and to programmers my and jwz's age, it was THE FUTURE.
But to this generation, it's denigrated as "retina bleach".
- axaxs 13y agoI'd wager most who hate green on black don't spend much time in terminals. I'd be blind by now if they were locked to black on white.
- thedufer 13y agoI spend basically all day in a terminal, but green on black is still pretty grating. I use http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized (the dark version), which is quite pleasant - most text is a light grey, and the background is a very dark blue. In general, though, I find that light on dark is much easier on the eyes than black on white. That's how my Kindle Fire is set up, too.
- nilved 13y agoWhat's wrong with e.g. #ddd on #222?
- axaxs 13y agoFor me, the same thing that's wrong with #222 on #222 - harder to see. In seriousness, it's easy on the eyes but doesn't seem nearly as clear as green.
- snogglethorpe 13y agoSure, but the typical green-on-black terminal from days of yore is very, very, different than jwz's blog page on a modern monitor... I don't know whether it's strictly the color of those old phosphors or other physical attributes of the displays, but it's like night and day. [I was a particular fan of the H29, a soft yellowish grassy green, it was cheerful without being grating, just great to use. Also a good feeling detachable keyboard, lots of nice stuff.]
- npongratz 13y agoAgreed that the difference is like night and day. I also remember the black of the green-on-black terminals was "lighter" somehow, so that there was less contrast between the black and the green. The lower contrast definitely saves on my eyes. I approximate this in iTerm2 by setting my background to RGB (0, 39, 0), and foreground to RGB (26, 223, 0). Probably not perfect, but I found it works fine with a MBP non-retina built-in as well as an external LCD.
- jff 13y agoI've used a real green-on-black VT-220 and it nearly blinded me when I looked away after a few hours. Everything looked purple.
- mpyne 13y agoEveryone knows amber-on-black was the only acceptable terminal configuration. :)
- walshemj 13y agono the one true terminal is the VT100 - with the clicky sound turned on a touch typist sounded like a reenactment of the st valentines day massacre. We even went and brought the official DEC schematics so our electronics shop could fix the rs232 isolators them when a nearby lightning strike took them out. long cable runs under a metal roof
- ashmud 13y agoI grew up with white on blue. The non-bright intensities, that is. Very good during daytime light levels on a CRT. http://mindprod.com/utility/sa!.txt http://mindprod.com/utility/sa!.txt
- apaprocki 13y agoThe Bloomberg Terminal kindly reminds you s/was/is :)
- mixmastamyk 13y agoSaid to be most ergonomic. The warm color has since been found to be more pleasing in the evening. After I gave up on compiz (negative plugin) due to bugs, I made a night-time stylesheet that converts white pages to orange on almost black, on a hotkey. Using it now to save my eyes from blinding light.
- Amadou 13y agoCan you share? I could really use that.
- mixmastamyk 13y agoI'm currently using the Custom Buttons extension in Firefox to execute the script at: http://pastebin.com/9wWg1Ssw http://pastebin.com/9wWg1Ssw There is also a nice bookmarklet called invert-lightness I like a lot, however it is resource intensive on complicated pages as it must traverse the entire dom. So, I don't use it as much: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/color.html https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/color.html
- drivingmenuts 13y agoThe VT100s I worked on were all off-whitish-bluish, not green. Also, some ambers. But they all had raster lines. So, if the future doesn't have raster lines, it's not the future.
- nhebb 13y ago> But to this generation, it's denigrated as "retina bleach". Given that I'm 49, this feels like being carded at 7-11. I think the difference is screen resolution and intensity. I could sit at an old green screen for hours with no retina bleach. But jwz's site, even with the same color scheme, feels so much more intense than the screens of yore.
- mixmastamyk 13y agoMost LCD's today produce extreme amounts of light. I usually run mine at ~50% brightness during the day and 0% at night.
- induscreep 13y agocopypasta of my comment: try using f.lux, a program that changes your monitor's white temp. depending on the time of day. http://justgetflux.com/ http://justgetflux.com/
- nitrogen 13y agof.lux definitely helps, but it'd be awesome if all monitors adopted a standard protocol (perhaps something over HDMI-CEC) for controlling backlight brightness as well. Sometimes it's not quite enough just to turn down the blue.
- aestra 13y agoMy TV (which I use for a monitor) has a light sensor on it which automatically adjusts the brightness based on the amount of light in the room. It's smart, more screens should do this. Phones do it too. I prefer my screens very dark at all times though so I turn it off and just keep the brightness to low all the time. I have really sensitive eyes, I can't go outside without sunglasses, even when its cloudy.
- ashmud 13y agoCombine that with discontinuing PWM controlled brightness. Some monitors can flicker badly, especially while warming up. http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pulse_width_modulation.htm http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pulse_width_modulation....