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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
smartass 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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