1phosphor(6x)                  XScreenSaver manual                 phosphor(6x)
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NAME

6       phosphor - simulates an old terminal with long-sustain phosphor
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SYNOPSIS

9       phosphor  [--display  host:display.screen]  [--window] [--root] [--win‐
10       dow-id number][--install] [--visual visual] [--font font] [--scale int]
11       [--ticks  int]  [--delay  usecs]  [--program  command] [--meta] [--esc]
12       [--bs] [--del] [--fps]
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DESCRIPTION

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

21       phosphor accepts the following options:
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23       --window
24               Draw on a newly-created window.  This is the default.
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26       --root  Draw on the root window.
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28       --window-id number
29               Draw on the specified window.
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31       --install
32               Install a private colormap for the window.
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34       --visual visual
35               Specify  which  visual  to use.  Legal values are the name of a
36               visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of  a  specific
37               visual.
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39       --font font-name
40               The  X font to use.  Phosphor can take any font and scale it up
41               to pixelate it.  The default is fixed.
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43       --scale int
44               How much to scale the font up: in other words, the size in real
45               pixels of the simulated pixels.  Default 6.
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47       --ticks int
48               The number of colors to use when fading to black.  Default 20.
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50       --delay usecs
51               The  speed  of  the  terminal: how long to wait between drawing
52               each character.  Default 50000, or about 1/20th second.
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54       --pty   Launch the sub-program under a PTY, so that it can address  the
55               screen directly.  This is the default.
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57       --pipe  Launch  the sub-program at the end of a pipe: do not let it ad‐
58               dress the screen directly.
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60       --program sh-command
61               The command to run to generate the text to display.   This  op‐
62               tion may be any string acceptable to /bin/sh.  The program will
63               be run at the end of a pty or pipe, and any characters that  it
64               prints  to  stdout  will  be printed on phosphor's window.  The
65               characters will be printed  artificially  slowly,  as  per  the
66               --delay  option  above.   If  the  program  exits,  it  will be
67               launched again after 5 seconds.
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69               For example:
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71                 phosphor --program 'ping 8.8.8.8'
72                 phosphor --program 'ps -e'
73                 phosphor --program 'od -txC -w6 /dev/random'
74                 phosphor --program 'cat /dev/random'
75                 phosphor --scale 2 --program 'top'
76                 phosphor --scale 4 --program 'mtr www.kernel.org'
77                 phosphor --scale 4 --program 'emacs -nw -q -f life'
78                 phosphor --scale 4 --program 'emacs -nw -q --eval "(hanoi 5)"'
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80               If you have the festival(1)  text-to-speech  system  installed,
81               you can have it read the screen as phosphor prints it:
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83                 phosphor --program \
84                     'xscreensaver-text | tee /dev/stderr | festival --tts'
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86               You  can  also  use  phosphor  as  a  lo-fi replacement for the
87               xterm(1) and gnome-terminal(1) terminal emulators:
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89                  phosphor -delay 0 -program $SHELL
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92       --esc   When the user types a key with the Alt or Meta keys held  down,
93               send an ESC character first.  This is the default.
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95       --meta  When Meta or Alt are held down, set the high bit on the charac‐
96               ter instead.
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98       --del   Swap Backspace and Delete.  This is the default.
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100       --bs    Do not swap Backspace and Delete.
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102       --fps   Display the current frame rate and CPU load.
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TERMINAL EMULATION

105       By default, phosphor allocates a pseudo-tty for the sub-process to  run
106       under.   This  has  the  desirable side effect that the program will be
107       able to use ioctl(2) to fetch information about terminal parameters and
108       window size, which many programs (such as top(1)) need to run properly.
109       phosphor will also set the environment variable TERM to  vt100  in  the
110       child process.
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112       Any characters typed on the phosphor window will be passed along to the
113       sub-process.  (Note that this only works when running in "window" mode,
114       not when running in --root mode under xscreensaver.)
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ENVIRONMENT

117       DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.
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119       XENVIRONMENT
120               to  get  the  name of a resource file that overrides the global
121               resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
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123       XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW
124               The window ID to use with --root.
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126       TERM    to inform the sub-process of the type of terminal emulation.
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SEE ALSO

129       xscreensaver(1), xscreensaver-text(6x), fortune(1),  apple2(6x),  star‐
130       wars(6x),  fontglide(6x),  ljlatest(6x),  dadadodo(1),  webcollage(6x),
131       driftnet(1) EtherPEG, EtherPeek, console_codes(4).
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134       Copyright © 1999 by Jamie Zawinski.  Permission to use,  copy,  modify,
135       distribute,  and  sell this software and its documentation for any pur‐
136       pose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the  above  copyright
137       notice  appear  in  all  copies and that both that copyright notice and
138       this permission notice appear in supporting documentation.   No  repre‐
139       sentations are made about the suitability of this software for any pur‐
140       pose.  It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
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AUTHOR

143       Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 27-Apr-99.  Pty and  vt100  emulation  by
144       Fredrik Tolf <fredrik@dolda2000.com>.
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148X Version 11               6.08-1.fc38 (17-Oct-2023)              phosphor(6x)
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