363 pointsby orhunp_5 hours ago56 comments
  • JSR_FDED4 minutes ago
    This is pure Hollywood OS - hackers feverishly entering obscure incantations like “upload virus”…but now with the terminal twisted into a Moebius strip!
  • pjmlp4 hours ago
    UNIX still trying to catch up with Xerox workstations in the REPL experience, or general Lisp machines for that matter.

    Inline graphics from 1981,

    https://youtu.be/o4-YnLpLgtk?t=376

    • steezeburger2 hours ago
      That's not 3d
      • pjmlp24 minutes ago
        The example on the linked video it isn't, correct.

        Here is another video, this time with S-PACKAGE used to develop Nintendo 64.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV5obrYaogU

        Which given the REPL capabilities, you can easily embedd them on it, just like the other video.

    • pocksuppet4 hours ago
      Or TempleOS.
      • mghackerlady3 hours ago
        People joke about templeos a lot, but it had some really neat ideas (holy-c is a pretty nice language)
        • tombert21 minutes ago
          I've dug around the TempleOS codebase a bit, and while it certainly is impressive for a single guy's work, I think there's been an overcorrection where people act like Terry was some hyper genius instead of "a pretty smart guy".

          I kind of got the impression that whenever Terry didn't know how to do something, he would just convince himself that that's not what God wanted anyway and stop doing it.

        • nurettinan hour ago
          It should have been HolyBasic. Mistyping a HolyC indirection in an editor causes the OS to crash.
          • pjmlp23 minutes ago
            We would still have an issue with bad POKEs though.
      • Onavo4 hours ago
        That was a work of art. Also Oberon.
        • em-bee2 hours ago
          and plan9

          also smalltalk

          we used oberon in one class in university. i don't remember much unfortunately.

        • whywhywhywhy3 hours ago
          >work of art

          more like theopneustos

          • d-us-vban hour ago
            Even Terry Davis wasn't that bold.
            • drakythean hour ago
              Given that Terry described the manic episodes as "a revelation from God" I think theopneustos is an accurate description. It just means "God Breathed" or "Inspired by God"
      • jszymborski2 hours ago
        I came here to mention how it reminded me of the sick 3D icons TempleOS had in its terminal
  • joouhaan hour ago
    It's very interesting to learn about the newly proposed glyph protocol [1] in the linked blog post. I was bemoaning the lack of exactly this here about 6 months ago [2]!

    [1] https://rapha.land/introducing-glyph-protocol-for-terminals/

    [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45805072

  • CTDOCodebases3 hours ago
    "Don't worry, all of these dependencies are worth it."

    That had me in stitches.

  • noelwelsh3 hours ago
    I like this. No reason the terminal should only support text. Data science notebooks show one way the terminal can evolve. Lots of interesting stuff happening in this space, with Kitty probably being the most aggressive innovator here [1]. I'm not sure there is an overall vision, though.

    [1]: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/protocol-extensions/

    • joouhaan hour ago
      No evolution necessary! With my project, euporie [1], you can have use your data science notebooks with graphical image outputs, HTML, LaTeX, etc, all in the terminal.

      [1] https://github.com/joouha/euporie

    • panki27an hour ago
      I managed to get `pyvista` to render arbitrary 3D shapes directly to the terminal using kitty graphics. It's a giant hack, only way to make it performant is using shm.

      https://git.theresno.cloud/panki/kglobe

    • bcjdjsndon3 hours ago
      Terry A Davis already did this. It was as crazy then as it is now
      • ch4s32 hours ago
        The person who built this directly cites Terry as the inspiration.
      • Wololooo3 hours ago
        Obligatory Temple OS unhinged video.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o48KzPa42_o

        Joking apart, the whole thing was both an exercise in madness and genius. Sometimes I wonder what he would have done if he had not gone crazy. We will never know...

    • alias_neo3 hours ago
      I wonder if something like this could work for thumbnails in the terminal; I prefer to browse my filesystem from a terminal rather than the point and click file manager typically, and it would be really useful if I could have a grid-style `ls` with terminal based renders of the 3d models (thinking STL/STEP, 3D printing) in that directory. Bonus points if I could preview/rotate the model to inspect it.
      • em-bee39 minutes ago
        as a compromise i started using nemo/nautilus with a plugin that puts a terminal at the bottom of each tab. so i have a graphical view of the terminal but a commandline in the same folder right next to it. the two don't interact other than being able drag and drop filenames from the filemanager into the terminal, so it is far from what we really want, but it's a small start.
      • noelwelsh2 hours ago
        eza [1] is a step in that direction. It lacks the interactivity, however.

        [1]: github.com/eza-community/eza

      • calvinmorrison2 hours ago
        You can do this with thumbnails using sixels already
        • kjs32 hours ago
          You could probably do something interesting with Tek 4014 emulation, but I think you're right that sixel would be slick.
    • the_other3 hours ago
      Mix this 3d graphics, with data science notebooks, with local LLMs, and perhaps an integrated coding harness, with visibility over your personal data and you’d have something absurdly good.

      This might overtake “a haiku+macOS mashup” as my idealised computing future.

      • miah_3 hours ago
        At that point you've re-invented emacs.
        • em-bee20 minutes ago
          well, almost. if emacs offers a graphical file manager i'll consider using it. this seems to be a start: https://github.com/emacs-eaf/eaf-file-manager. the file manager needs to also integrate with a terminal though so i can run unix commands in the same directory. and it needs to support mouse-based operations too. finally, and that's the real kicker, i'd like a better integration of the terminal output and the graphical display by supporting the passing of structured data that the display knows how to handle without terminal escape codes. those need to go away. (which is why sixels are not a solution either)
        • mghackerlady2 hours ago
          Greenspun’s Tenth Rule of Programming states that any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
    • sublinear3 hours ago
      > push the state of terminal emulators forward

      What's overlooked here are the insane political and economic forces that were required to get anywhere close to the (sort of!) consistent implementation of plain text we have today. These projects try to piggyback off that success yet only contribute back harm. We have standards for a reason.

      I'm not saying people can't have fun, but don't try to start a cyberpunk-inspired revolution and then blame the side effects of groupthink and software rot on everyone else when it goes sideways.

  • sigseg1v4 hours ago
    Seems... really good?!

    Questions:

    - rendering capabilities of this seem like it should also be able to handle 2d well, or am I mistaken? every solution I see for getting high quality 2d images or rasterization in terminal is all pretty bad. Could this do better than other solutions or is there a fundamental limit being hit somewhere?

    - What happens with ssh given that this is gpu accelerated?

    • the_gipsyan hour ago
      The kitty graphics protocol is pretty good. Ghostty implements it fully.
    • berkes4 hours ago
      There are quite a few GPU powered terminal emulators around already.

      Is that what you're looking for?

      • jetbalsa3 hours ago
        I think they are looking for full 2d graphics, bitmaps, sprites and the likes.
  • amelius4 hours ago
    Terminal is slowly becoming a full featured web browser.
    • iugtmkbdfil8344 hours ago
      Always has been meme incoming. Also, more seriously, the purpose of a tool is to do a job. The question becomes whether this tool can be made useful. I.. honestly don't know, but I will be finding out soon:D
    • microflash3 hours ago
      Or Terminal is already a full featured web browser?

      https://hyper.is/

    • yagizdagabakan hour ago
      i have been waiting for this.
    • tekla3 hours ago
      Isn't there a Terminal that renders everything with React?

      Super slow, but I guess thats what web devs want.

      • EMM_3862 hours ago
        There are terminal libraries that do this:

        https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink

        Which is what Claude Code CLI uses (or was using?) and it caused many issues such as flickering, thrashing, and latency.

    • shevy-java4 hours ago
      And rightfully so! \o/
  • Panzerschrek38 minutes ago
    The question is - why do we still need the terminal abstraction at all?
    • pjmlp22 minutes ago
      I would argue that a proper REPL is much better.
    • dkersten37 minutes ago
      That’s what I came here to ask. Their demo looks like Compiz back in the day: ok, cool, you have 3d effects, but… why? What does it do for me?

      Compiz 3d effects were ultimately a useless gimmick and I predict this is too.

      • reaperducer14 minutes ago
        Lack of imagination doesn't mean this isn't innovation.

        It's the ability to convey more information in less space.

        Top-of-my-head notion: The cursor spins (or changes in another way) to reflect CPU use, or bandwidth use, instead of taking up space elsewhere on the screen.

  • HumblyTossed29 minutes ago
    How long until we have a web browser in a terminal (not just Lynx, but a full on web browser)?
    • PUSH_AX21 minutes ago
      Soon it will just be browsers all the way down.
    • mghackerlady18 minutes ago
      there was a project that rendered firefox to the terminal through box drawing characters. When libweb is more complete I kinda want to do something similar
  • iugtmkbdfil8344 hours ago
    Rip Terry. May you never be forgotten.

    edit: But your spirit lives on ( based on the project:D )

    • arusahni40 minutes ago
      As do his sprites.
  • liamwire2 hours ago
    You had me at spinning rat cursor
  • pelagicAustral5 hours ago
    Can I really render a 3D rat on my terminal? If I can then I'm sold.
    • mghackerlady2 hours ago
      I saw it this morning on reddit, the I beam was replaced with a spinning rat for the demonstration. It was very cool B)
    • sevenzero5 hours ago
      This is exactly what I thought as well.
  • arkwin3 hours ago
    We are one step closer to the terminal in the movie Hackers, and I am all for it.
  • darkwater3 hours ago
    What would happen when you use `cat` in Ratty then?
  • injidup27 minutes ago
    Anybody remember "wobbly windows"? It never sticks.
    • mghackerlady16 minutes ago
      I have wobbly windows on whenever I use KDE. I like how it gives the movements more momentum, though I have it turned down by a lot so it isn't distracting
  • basilikum4 hours ago
    This looks a lot like it'd qualify for a ShowHN. Add "ShowHN: " to the beginning of the title and it should show up in /show
  • nialv73 minutes ago
    Terry A. Davis will be proud
  • rs545837an hour ago
    Damn this was really fun to use.
  • chakintoshan hour ago
    People complain about token limits

    Then spend their tokens on abominations like this

    Make it make sense

    • torben-friis39 minutes ago
      I much prefer seeing tokens used for silly fun stuff, rather than sad get-rich-quick attempts like filling YouTube and Spotify with LLM crap.
    • Gracana8 minutes ago
      > Make it make sense

      It's not hypocrisy when different people do different things.

    • gosub10015 minutes ago
      Did this developer complain about token limits?
    • kspacewalk241 minutes ago
      I mean... Why not?
  • gorgoileran hour ago
    Hah, reminds me of the Quantel broadcast equipment on the 1990s. Why fade to black when you can fade to 3d butterfly!?
  • mohamedkoubaa4 hours ago
    Emojis in a terminal are a step too far for me. This is just... Indulgent.
  • hartjer28 minutes ago
    "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." - Jeff Goldblum (OG Jurassic Park)
  • lackoftactics2 hours ago
    Hantavirus inspired?
    • xrd2 hours ago
      You should know that using a TERMINAL instead of a BROWSER ON THE DANGEROUS INTERNET is the ONLY WAY to *avoid* viruses!
  • 2ndorderthought5 hours ago
    I actually see some use cases for this. It's one of those should be nonsense projects that somehow isn't.
    • panzi4 hours ago
      What use cases do you see?
      • 2ndorderthought4 hours ago
        Checking 3d models in a directory inside my terminal to see what's what without opening an application and clicking 100 times.
        • a963 hours ago
          .. over ssh. In a tmux. After disconnecting and reconnecting.
      • drob5184 hours ago
        Yea, gotta be honest here; I’m struggling to see many use cases here other than 3d graphs. I really don’t need a spinning 3d rat cursor.
        • 2 hours ago
          undefined
      • jayGlow2 hours ago
        we could bring back the 3d file browser and render it in the terminal now.

        https://youtu.be/dFUlAQZB9Ng?si=3fE-vE8xF5rSVhRR

      • herrjan hour ago
        pranking your co-workers
      • avaer4 hours ago
        Game development.
  • silon424 hours ago
    IMO, next crazy step is for terminal to just have wayland or X11 protocol ? (/s or not?)
  • namar0x0309an hour ago
    More of this please! Outside the box thinking! Yes and yes!
  • brunoborges34 minutes ago
    Cool... why?
  • tootie36 minutes ago
    Make me think of the infamous Unix scene in Jurassic Park.
  • voidUpdate5 hours ago
    I was going to comment how it reminded me of TempleOS and the author should look into that, but the accompanying blog post explains how it was inspired by it https://blog.orhun.dev/introducing-ratty/
    • 5 hours ago
      undefined
    • iwontberude5 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • hailruda4 hours ago
        User name doesn’t checkout.

        Any technical reason for such a strong opinion?

        • iwontberude4 hours ago
          He constantly used the N word to describe black people and always was warning people about how evil black people were. I’m not making this up, go watch his streams.
          • iugtmkbdfil8344 hours ago
            Hold up.. is that your definition of a technical reason?
            • iwontberude4 hours ago
              Yes and I can appreciate why you don’t see it as technical, but software should be made to help users. I was brought up the ACM way.
          • 4 hours ago
            undefined
      • AntiUSAbah4 hours ago
        It looks like he has schizophrenia which I would argue is a mental illness, a strong one.

        Why are you so invested in TempleOS?

        • iwontberude4 hours ago
          Mental illness is no excuse for vile white Christian nationalism and hate against blacks. Miss me with that ignorance.

          It’s clear how hateful he is from just watching his streams. It’s not a tick or a symptom of a clinical issue, it’s a deep seated belief that was only exposed to us because of his schizophrenia.

          Yes I have empathy for him and I also recognize that he is a menace and probably is better unknown. We are spoiled for choice anyways.

          • AntiUSAbah4 hours ago
            So just to be clear, a human being can't think properly / straight anymore, has issues forming a coherent worldview, has regularly crazy maniac phases were he would drive like 100 miles, dismantle his car, throw away his keys but you do not accept any of this as a reasonable excuse that that particular human is not able to break out or even manifests stereotypical thoughts?

            The mental base mode you are born, is a community of christians, parents forming your mind etc. and you have to break out of this, formulate your own independet worldview. A lot of people can't do that today. All religios people in fact.

            Plenty of woman can't break out of absuve relationships, familys protecting someone inside the family even if they are rapists due to "family is family; what would others think of us" etc. and thats were you draw the line for that Human being?

            • bonsai_spool4 hours ago
              > Plenty of woman can't break out of absuve relationships, familys protecting someone inside the family even if they are rapists due to "family is family; what would others think of us" etc. and thats were you draw the line for that Human being?

              I think you're being fair overall, but I would also say that OP in this thread reply is highlighting something worthwhile. If Terry were a misogynist, I don't think this thread would have taken as long to recall his abnormal behavior. But that's just, like, my opinion.

      • rvz4 hours ago
        It is just software. TempleOS and this project just looks cool.
  • Bluescreenbuddy15 minutes ago
    Another terminal to murder your battery life
  • semiinfinitely20 minutes ago
    temple OS?
  • randusername2 hours ago
    Here's the bit from the blog post about it:

    > When I first got introduced to [TempleOS], I was shocked and impressed by the flashy colors, graphical sprites and uncomprehensible UI. There are so many things that makes it so unique, weird and fascinating at the same time, somehow.... Basically, the command line becomes the direct interface for everything. You can write code, interact with the system and render graphics all in the same place, which is why TempleOS feels so unusual compared to conventional operating systems.

    I think this could be a really cool approach. I enjoy tools like Chafa, imgcat, etc but something always feels a little clunky about the separation between text and images. Paradoxically having text and non-text all jumbled up like this feels better somehow.

  • wolvoleoan hour ago
    This would be nice in VR
  • whywhywhywhy3 hours ago
    I was gonna comment here "real TempleOS vibes" then the TempleOS logo appeared a moment later in the demo video.
  • kandros29 minutes ago
    Expect to see Orhun in here before clicking, not disappointed
  • sgt3 hours ago
    How do I enter zoom mode or pan mode?
  • neomantra4 hours ago
    Really fun project! Dude, I spent the last week implementing Kitty Graphics and Clipboard protocols in ghostty-web in the Canvas render.

    Then I added WebGL and WebGPU renderers [1], including support for Kitty.

    Then I see this this project on a Monday morning... so now I have to implement Ratty Graphics Protocol?!?! [2].

    ETA: I looked into this; Ghostty would need patched to support Ratty since Ghostty-Web now defers APC handling there. It would also require pulling in a 3D engine like three.js or otherwise implementing file parsing, lighting, etc. Finally, since local filenames are part of the protocol, a browser would need some file resolver helper, either to get the data over the APC channel or via a URL.

    [1] https://github.com/NimbleMarkets/ghostty-web/tree/nm-webgpu

    [2] https://github.com/orhun/ratty/blob/main/protocols/graphics....

    • kokeyan hour ago
      I am a bit surprised that I had to look hard for someone to mention Ghostty in the comments.
  • olivierestsage2 hours ago
    In a world of slop, one truly noble project emerges
  • gosub100an hour ago
    Has anyone tried to create 3D fonts? It sounds like a ton of work but might look cool if done correctly.

    You could also do really cool text highlights by working with light sources and shader effects

    Another feature I'm looking for is smooth scrolling when you hit enter. I've had debates before where they claim it's not possible, that the text must jump one line. But I think it's possible, by shifting the frame buffer up.

  • drakythean hour ago
    My first reaction: "But why?"

    My second reaction: "Oh wait is that TempleOS being cited? This is either awesome or terrible."

  • austinrm29 minutes ago
    Excited to see others equally inspired by TempleOS’ 3D feature :)

    I tried something similar a few months ago that acts more as a library to ratatui than a separate terminal emulator [0].

    Was surprised how far one can get using some off the shelf characters like half-block when rasterizing.

    The Glyph protocol mentioned in the blog post is interesting … perhaps custom glyphs could help smooth some of the (literal) rough edges from the low effective resolution of a terminals character grid.

    [0] https://github.com/limlabs/ratatui-3d

  • nickcageinacage4 hours ago
    so cool. well done
  • iugtmkbdfil8344 hours ago
    Dude. Congrats. You actually made a compelling argument to put rust on my machine:P
  • BaardFigur2 hours ago
    Reminds me of TempleOS
  • lioeters3 hours ago
    > inserted 3D objects in the demo above are actually from the TempleOS codebase itself

    Brilliant. The dream lives on! This is the best form of paying respects.

    It's walking a fine line between madness and genius, and who knows if it'll ever be practical, but more important is the sense of wonder and "fuck yeah" as King Terry expressed so eloquently.

  • shevy-java4 hours ago
    This is a great idea. I always wanted KDE konsole to e. g. show images inlined as is. This is possible via magick six:-, but I wanted this to be natively. I want the terminal to be able to work with any data and display it in any way. No need to simulate the 1980s era anymore (except for backwards/legacy support). So great idea here really.
    • berkes4 hours ago
      Kitty and several other terminal emulators, have built in graphics display already. IIRC, this is called the kitty protocol, but I might be mistaken.
    • anthk3 hours ago
      I did that with Sixels, no Rust needed, no 3D crap, no ad-hoc addons, just old vt340 support in XTerm.

      That's how I read images under a remote pubnix with tut using a Mastodon account over plain SSH.

      Chafa and XTerm. It works.

      • kjs3an hour ago
        I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
  • Lucasoato4 hours ago
    Imagine this with VR dev environments!
  • infoinlet4 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • specwiseai2 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • openclawclub4 hours ago
    [dead]
  • user55892 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • 4 hours ago
    undefined
  • tester1214 hours ago
    [dead]
  • cgaooo2 hours ago
    [dead]
  • soupspaces4 hours ago
    [dead]
  • rullelito3 hours ago
    Can anyone explain why this is novel? It seems pretty basic?