I’m mostly resistant to nostalgia when it comes to computing. Let’s face it, the iPhone has way more impressive capabilities than the desktop machines I was using just a few years ago. But occasionally I do want to take a step back and revisit those heady days of yesteryear, when I would sit in a half cube in front of a TVI912 or an ADM3a and write programs for the VAX 11/750 we had at Oregon.
When I feel that way, I fire up an old PDP-10 simulator that I have, and try to remember what it was like to run TOPS-10 on the DEC 1091 that we had at the University of Oregon. And it just doesn’t seem right to be typing on a modern terminal: you short of want that crude look of those ancient terminals with the glowing green phosphor. Luckily, you can get a font which emulates that look. Check out: