smart terminal
smart terminal: n. 1. A terminal that has enough computing
capability to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end
processing from the computer it talks to. The development of
workstations and personal computers has made this term and the
product it describes semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear
variants of the phrase `act like a smart terminal' used to describe
the behavior of workstations or PCs with respect to programs that
execute almost entirely out of a remote server's storage, using
local devices as displays. 2. obs. Any terminal with an addressable
cursor; the opposite of a glass tty. Today, a terminal with
merely an addressable cursor, but with none of the more-powerful
features mentioned in sense 1, is called a dumb terminal.
There is a classic quote from Rob Pike (inventor of the blit
terminal): "A smart terminal is not a smart_ass_ terminal, but
rather a terminal you can educate." This illustrates a common
design problem: The attempt to make peripherals (or anything else)
intelligent sometimes results in finicky, rigid `special features'
that become just so much dead weight if you try to use the device in
any way the designer didn't anticipate. Flexibility and
programmability, on the other hand, are _really_ smart. Compare
hook.
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