More than a generation of people grew up using the Glass Teletype, or Video Terminal. The slight hum as it turned on, the cathode ray tube warming up, an occasional horizontal line slowly marching up the display. After a few moments it was ready for work, tireless and always present, lighting rooms with their soft green glow.
Unlike their loud predecessors the teletypes, the monochrome Video Terminals had no moving parts, required no consumable paper and ribbons. Finally, you compute without limits: page after page of pure light information scroll by at unheard of speeds, all quiet and without reams of paper to destroy.
A typical display, like the one you're using is a pure text experience of 80x24 in glorious white, green or amber. Considered high- resolution at the time, each character was crisp and nearly pixel-free. Scrolling across the screen leaving afterglow trails well depicted in The Matrix.
SCREEN SAVERS, now little more than an artistic display came into use due to "screen burn". The phosper would burn in and leave an after-image of long-displayed characters, hence the need to turn off or change the display at regular intervals.
Existing since the first typewriters, then printed on Teletyes, handmade ASCII ART was popularized:
___________________ _-_
\__(==========/_=_/ ____.---'---`---.____
\_ \ \----._________.----/
\ \ / / `-_-'
__,--`.`-'..'-_
/____ ||
`--.____,-'
Because now, unlike printed paper, text can be ANIMATED and integrated into games.
Terminals, due to their need to be constantly connected to an stunnigly expensive central computer could not compete with the Personal Computer. Now called DUMB TERMINALS and slow in comparison to the PC whic offered speed, flicker free viewing, smooth scrolling, local storage, no need for constant (and costly) connectivity, COLOR and finally high-resolution graphics.
The Video Terminal created the tools that surpassed it as well as many of the technologies surrounding you now. Hence the wistful look back at how previous generations experienced life and an encore of some of the most memorable technologies.