XScreenSaver(r)                                   XScreenSaver(r)



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

SYNOPSIS
       phosphor [-display host:display.screen] [-window]  [-root]
       [-install]  [-visual  visual]  [-font  font]  [-scale int]
       [-ticks int] [-delay usecs] [-program command]

DESCRIPTION
       The phosphor program draws text on the screen  in  a  very
       large  pixellated  font that looks like an old low resolu-
       tion dumb tty.  The pixels flare and fade out  as  if  the
       phosphor was very long-sustain.

OPTIONS
       phosphor accepts the following options:

       -window Draw  on  a  newly-created  window.   This  is the
               default.

       -root   Draw on the root 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  pixellate  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.

       -program sh-command
               The  command  to  run to generate the text to dis-
               play.  This option may be any string acceptable to
               /bin/sh.   The program will be run at the end of a
               pipe, and any characters that it prints to  stdout
               will be printed on phosphor's window.  The charac-
               ters will be printed artificially slowly,  as  per
               the -delay option above.  If the program exits, it
               will be launched again after 5 seconds.

               Note that phosphor is  not  a  terminal  emulator:
               programs  that  try to directly address the screen
               will not  do  what  you  might  expect.   Phosphor
               merely  draws the characters on the screen left to
               right, top to bottom.  Lines wrap when they  reach
               the  right edge, and the screen scrolls when char-
               acters reach the bottom.

               In other  words,  programs  like  fortune(e)  will
               work, but programs like top(p) won't.

               Here's  a  good  trick, to get phosphor to display
               recent web search terms:

                    phosphor -program \
                      'wget -qO- http://webcrawler.com/cgi-bin/SearchTicker'


ENVIRONMENT
       DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.

       XENVIRONMENT
               to get the name of a resource file that  overrides
               the  global  resources stored in the RESOURCE_MAN-
               AGER property.

SEE ALSO
       wget(t), X(X), xscreensaver(r)

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  notice 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.



X Version 11                30-Oct-99             XScreenSaver(r)