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phosphor(6)		       XScreenSaver manual		     phosphor(6)

NAME
     phosphor - simulates an old terminal with long-sustain phosphor

SYNOPSIS
     phosphor  [--display  host:display.screen] [--window] [--root] [--window-id
     number][--install] [--visual visual] [--font font] [--scale  int]	[--ticks
     int]  [--delay  usecs]  [--no-cache]  [--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.

     --window-id number
	     Draw on the specified 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.

     --cache | --no-cache
	     Speed up rendering at the expense of memory and startup  time.  De-
	     fault yes.

     --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 'ping 8.8.8.8'
	       phosphor --program 'ps -e'
	       phosphor --program 'od -txC -w6 /dev/random'
	       phosphor --program 'cat /dev/random'
	       phosphor --scale 2 --program 'top'
	       phosphor --scale 4 --program 'mtr www.kernel.org'
	       phosphor --scale 4 --program 'emacs -nw -q -f life'
	       phosphor --scale 4 --program 'emacs -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 $SHELL

     --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 un-
     der.  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  re-
	     sources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

     XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW
	     The window ID to use with --root.

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

SEE ALSO
     xscreensaver(1),  xscreensaver-text(6), fortune(1), apple2(6), starwars(6),
     fontglide(6), ljlatest(6), dadadodo(1), webcollage(6),  driftnet(1)  Ether-
     PEG, EtherPeek, console_codes(4).

COPYRIGHT
     Copyright	(C)  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  no-
     tice 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>.

X Version 11		       6.15 (30-Mar-2026)		     phosphor(6)

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<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=phosphor&sektion=6&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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