Terminal (OS X)

Terminal (also known as Terminal.app ) is a terminal emulator from Apple for Mac OS X. It has its origin in the predecessor of Mac OS X, NeXTStep; Both systems are based on a UNIX / BSD core. Users can access with the program on a command line, the default is a bash shell.

History

All Mac OS systems prior to Mac OS X were not based on UNIX, and had no command line. The operating system NeXTSTEP from NeXT and its successor, Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X, based on a BSD core, possess a terminal.

With Mac OS X 10.0 a terminal emulator was first introduced on a Mac system. In Mac OS X 10.1 new character encodings could be used in the terminal, then also came support for Unicode, transparent backgrounds and shared windows with Mac OS X 10.2 added.

Along with Mac OS X 10.5 version 2.0 of the terminal has been shipped. As new features were tabs and windows groups to also the appearance of windows could be saved. However, in the same train disappeared the split window. This only came back with Mac OS X 10.6, which simultaneously brought a 64- bit version of the terminal.

In Mac OS X 10.7, the terminal again got some new features, such as full-screen mode and blurred transparent backgrounds and support for 256 colors ( xterm- 256color ). In addition, get a different look active and inactive windows.

Functions

It can perform the following terminals are emulated (Mac OS X 10.6): ansi, ddterm, rxvt, vt52, vt100, vt102, xterm, xterm-color. Starting with Mac OS X 10.7 still comes xterm- 256color to do so.

As any Shell Shell can be used; Default is bash. Other pre-loaded shells are csh, ksh, sh, tcsh, and zsh.

A special feature of the program is that a search in the help menu that highlights not only the appropriate menu items (such as Mac OS X usual), but also appropriate manpages are displayed. When you click on a manpage a separate terminal window is opened with the manpage. Thus giving a search for "get" not only Shared window back, but also eg getconf (1).