---
title: "Why green?"
slug: why-green
date: 2026-05-07
status: live
author: "@bitbonsai"
description: "On green phosphor CRT terminals, and the kind of computing that still feels real."
tags:
- computing history
- crt
- design
---
Nostalgia is an interesting thing...
I still remember the awe of the first time I saw a computer with a dedicated monitor. It was an [XT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT) with something like a 9" display, green only. You'd need a [5 1/4 floppy disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk) to boot the OS, then when you saw a `C:\>` that meant you could swap floppies and load [Prince of Persia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_(1989_video_game)) to have some fun. 360kb of code on each disk. Waiting time and weird noises.
We're talking the 80s, the time when I watched [TRON](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/) for the first time (the 1982 version) and imagined how life could be in the grid, inside those PCBs that we have to cobble together to assemble a computer.
Those were the times that if you wanted a computer, you had to research, find and assemble the boards. The [first Apple computer](https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/personal-computers/17/312) was a kit for nerds, hard to imagine when I type these words on a unibody-glued-almost-non-fixable machine.
This is the feeling that we have when we 3D print things, write code, run a server (that actually works). The tinkerer, the maker, the [hacker](http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is).
And the green text on a black screen, the first [CRT](https://www.crtdatabase.com/faq) I saw in the 80s was a symbol of all that. Discovery, curiosity, and all other probe names NASA came up with. This is what makes us feel alive. CRTs are an [electron gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_gun) firing at a glass screen coated with phosphor. Then it lights up where the beam hits it.
Do that fast enough and your brain sees a picture. Not pixels like we have now, it's a chemical reaction. The glow exists for a moment, then fades. Hence the **ghosting** and **scanlines**. All that stuff we spent the next forty years trying to get rid of.
That's why you're reading those words on a website that looks like it was built in another era. We want to feel that awe again. To put things together and create something.
### Then comes AI
Forty years later, the black screen is back. We spent forty years building shiny interfaces, then AI showed up and pulled us right back to **the prompt**.
It's interesting to realize that today, in 2026, the best way to create something with `AI` is in the terminal. The same old black screen where you type stuff and talk to the computer. And it answers back.
A terminal doesn't try to engage you. It sits there, waiting for you to type something. On the modern web, everything is infinite scrolling. On the terminal, you only have a blinking cursor, as if it was asking you...
```bash
$ what do you want to make?
```
That's why our site looks like this *.
> We consider that computers are materials to build something, not appliances.
That's lokaalhost:22. A room in Amsterdam where people show up and plug things or ideas in. It's where we can be inspired by the unknown, the "I think that will work".
*lokaal* means "room" or "classroom" in het Nederlands, *localhost* is a hostname that refers to your own computer. A way for your computer to communicate with itself through a [loopback connection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localhost). 22 is our room's number in [Lokaal432](https://lokaal432.com/), a creative community hub in IJburg, Amsterdam. It's also the [default `SSH` port](https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml), and `localhost:22` is how you'd refer to an SSH connection to your own machine. I know, it's geeky and quirky. That's also us.
A space for creatives, hackers, tinkerers, makers. There's [no place like 127.0.0.1](https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/eternal-flame.html).
* We've made some themes on the site as well, because in the old days, screens could be green, but also amber and white.