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.

