CRT terminal aesthetic
The old monochrome-monitor look: glowing monospace text on black, faint scanlines, a bright cursor, and soft phosphor bloom.
See it
What it is
The CRT terminal aesthetic copies monochrome computer terminals: green, amber, or pale text on deep black, set in a monospace face with a soft phosphor halo. Horizontal scanlines, slight flicker, rounded glass, and subtle barrel distortion stand in for a cathode-ray tube. The DEC VT100 from 1978 is a common visual reference, and the two colors come from real phosphor coatings: P1 green and P3 amber. Fallout's Pip-Boy is the version most people have actually used.
Reach for it in developer tools, games, portfolios, music visuals, or a small mode that should feel archival and machine-like. Keep the information structure terminal-simple: a prompt, short status lines, fixed columns, and one bright cursor or active row.
Gotcha: authentic monitor defects are hostile reading conditions. Heavy blur softens every glyph, tight scanlines can form moire patterns, and flicker can make people sick. Keep the effect on a separate overlay, leave the text itself sharp, and remove animation when reduced motion is requested.
Ask AI for it
Style this as a restrained DEC VT100-era CRT terminal. Set sharp monospace text in phosphor green on near-black, add a small CSS text-shadow halo, and place scanlines in a pointer-events: none pseudo-element using repeating-linear-gradient(). Add a faint radial highlight and rounded inset shadow to suggest curved glass. Blink only the block cursor with a CSS steps() animation, stop it under prefers-reduced-motion, and keep the actual glyph layer unblurred.