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Comment by staplung | Hacker News Reader

Expectation: "Quake terminal" implies playing Quake, possibly in some Asciinema-type way. Maybe just starting the built-in Quake terminal without the game-play.

Reality: a regular terminal that starts in the notch and expands to normal window.

I guess it's somehow based on the terminal that was in Quake but that was only really used for issuing quake commands, not really for being a posix-compliant, VT-100 compatible terminal.

[Update: it was quickly pointed out that "Quake terminal" is a term of art for one line terminal that can easily expand. I am a heavy terminal user but genuinely did not know that term was commonplace. Grumpiness retracted.]

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"Quake terminal" has been a term of art for a regular terminal that drops down from the top of the screen like the terminal in Quake did for the last 20-22 years. I remember this being a thing when I started using Linux back then.

https://github.com/Guake/guake

https://babbagefiles.xyz/quake-drop-down-terminal-history/

Yakuake, Kuake (2003), etc.

Oh, interesting. Surprised that I didn't already know that. Perhaps every time I encountered the term "quake terminal" I just assumed it literally meant the the Quake terminal proper.

I'll let my original comment stand since it seems likely that at least some others will have the same impedance mismatch as I did.

In any case, thanks for pointing it out.

No worries, mate! When the popular narrative is "you can run Doom on a pregnancy test" your blind spot tracks.

By the bye, I know Foone hates their threads being posted here, so I won't, but I absolutely adore their hardware and software finagling. It's also made me a better developer!

I’ve been using Linux since 1999 (thanks for the Halloween memos, Microsoft!) and this is the first I’m hearing of Quake terminals. I would also have assumed it involved the actual game somehow.

I think the much more common name is the console? I never heard about a Quake “terminal” tbh. It has always been the console to input console command.

TIL and TIL Windows Terminal supports it, and by default it uses tilde key like the real one that's not available in my keyboard. pain.

Interesting. Pretty sure it was called the 'console' in Quake. Guess it's a microscopic step from 'console' to 'terminal'.

It never stopped being a thing!! :)

Yes, I remember yakuake. Today I use tilda[1], it is really nice.

[1] https://github.com/lanoxx/tilda

Yeah, never heard the term "quake terminal" before, and I used to play Quake and use Yakuake. Even in Quake it was always the console, never the terminal, because it wasn't a terminal.

I think this kind of functionality has been called "Quake Terminal" for quite some time now...

You’re not the only one!

I figured this was the natural evolution of “hacking random device to be able to play DOOM” to “hacking the notch on my computer to play Quake.”

It's a "Quake-style terminal", much like Guake or Yakuake, no need to be pedantic.

Totally agree, I even grew up in the quake/dn3d era and wasn't familiar with the term either!

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