Cathode App Reviews

Im a sucker for minimalist text editors, but Cathode is so fun to use that Ive switched back to both the built-in text editor and command-line emacs for note-taking and most of my other writing needs. I also use it as my preferred SSH terminal. Visual settings offer plenty of customization to both the text (use the built-in faces or bring your own fixed-width font favs) and the "CRT" and let you save your themes as well. Reducing the "modem speed" slows down output all the way down to a 110 bps crawl, but intermediate speeds are useful because you can actually read output that would otherwise be flying by. All in all a perfect app for any design geek who interacts with servers on a regular basis.

Nicely done. One thing to note if you have an older Mac: my 2008 MacPros video card isnt sufficient to run this program, so right after I bought it I got a message saying I couldnt run the program. My laptop can run it, so Ill keep it for that, but this shouldve been mentioned in the requirements for the program.

Even though Cathode doesnt support my video card (X3100) I must give it five stars. Of course Cathode is a fantastically novel idea but it is also rather well executed. Having tested it on someone elses Mac it is obvious to me that Secret Geometry paid careful attention to detail. There is no such thing as a program without a bug, thats a fact of life. The best apps, however, are backed by great developers. After reporting my bug I got a courteous response in a timely maner. I dont think I could ask for more. Cathode isnt currently compatible with my machine but for the first time it isnt a refund I want, it is a hardware upgrade! Thats a pretty strong endorsement.

I buy this app as soon as I use the trial version. Everything is so elegant, But the drag effect is not adjustable, so after a long time working on it, I feel eye sore. Please add the drag adjustment, I mean no dragy effect after the content change, or provide a switch to turn the drag effect off for practice usage, After that I will give it 5 star

This application provides the perfect atmosphere for terminal work and I have enjoyed it greatly. A list of supported graphics cards would be nice, however. If you want your own custom setting to be the default, you need to edit the .plist file. First, save your theme in Cathode preferences (Monitor and/or Console settings.) Now navigate to /Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.secretgeometry.Cathode.plist and open this file in your favorite text editor. Cmd+F for the word "default". it will be around line 351. Change the names between the <strings> for "DefaultConsoleThemeName" and "DefaultMonitorThemeName" to your respectively saved themes. Save, restart Cathode, and enjoy!

I can almost smell the damp smell of an old terminal room or machine room when I use this, its that realistic! The modem settings really do work and slow settings can actually be useful (hint - control-S to pause output, control-Q to continue - justl like in the old days). The great thing is that this is a real terminal and one can use if for doing real work. All I need to do now is write an old-style screen menu. I just wish there was a 3270 version (with the little stick figures and clock icons at the bottom of the screen), or a Tektronix (flicker at every keystroke, and uppercase stencil-like characters).

Updates to scaling and window resizing mean this app can be a Terminal replacement, at least for that wonderful nostogic feeling of a CRT.

I am totally surprised at how much fun this app makes terminal sessions. If you have any sense of nostalgia, or if you just want something beyond the plain old mac terminal, you seriously have to check this out. Someone put a lot of time into this and I am totally enjoying it. This is the best thing that has ever happened to mac terminal - how the terminal was meant to be. Thanks!

What can I say? I like silly things.

Fun app! Takes me back about 30 years. I hope it can replace become my main Terminal app one day. I would really like hotkeys to switch between windows (Cmd-1,2,3, etc) and to number new windows by first-available integer (instead of always-increasing) like the Terminal app. Also it takes 2% CPU when minimized, this should be closer to 0%. Still fun to use.

Great and fun terminal, though I wish the "computer screen" corners were removed and just have the terminal.

This is the best thing EVER if youre an old-school coder. :)

Being a dedicated iTerm2 user, I was iffy on this for a long time. Yeah, it looks pretty, I said, but what is the point? The point is nostalgia. If youre old enough to remember the Commodore 64, the Apple //e or the green screens in your local library, you owe it to yourself to at least try this. Itll take you right back to those times. My biggest concern as an iTerm user was that it didnt support colors. But it does! And the Unicode support is pretty good too. The big payoff, I think, is running ncurses-based tools in Cathode. Htop output never looked so good.

It not only makes my machine run very hot but it kernel panics Mountain Lion. Thanks but no thanks.

I guess the most obvious question in many potential buyer’s mind is “Is it better then iTerm ?” Well … yes and no ! For me, the answer was no. However, I really wish that the answer was yes instead. This program is a good example of why you need function before fashion. It is super fun to use this. Go and customize - although you can not assign colors - you still have plenty options to customize. I am going to list the things I did not like first : First thing is this thing does not have tabs. It is really frustrating when you have multiple windows open. Another thing is I was not able to edit a file in it. I understand that the horizontal shifts are there to make it more retro. I love that effect. However, when in a file, it has changed the position of my cursor and things kept getting weird. I love the effect, thats why I have chosen to keep it on, but I don’t understand why it would move my cursor around when using nano. Another thing is settings. Although you have some options, I felt limited compared to iTerm or even Terminal. I was not able to find a setting that would set a default column and row numbers upon openning the app. Therefore my experience have been: open the app + resize = annoyed ! Keep in mind, this does not have tabs so I had to do it all the time. It has a checkbox for dimensions that says “Lock” but it never locked it for me. Things I like: Its faster to move around in this thing. Moving around in iTerm is rather feels rather slow compared to Terminal. This is there. Typing, moving around is fast. The look … oh the look of this thing. I mean how cool is that! EPIC! Even though I say I felt limited to customizing it compared to iTerm, this still looks better. Way better ! I guess my conclusion is that this is a great app. On the other hand, I run multiple servers and bash window is a big deal for me. In order for me to use this completely, it needs to mature - I really would like to have tabs - and untill then, I will keep using iTerm. I really hope this app matures soon because I loved it.

Cathode is a blast to use and has some of the deepest customazation you will ever find in a Terminal app. There really isn’t anything else to say other than, if you find yourself using Terminal you should be using Cathode. You could spend the money on a latte, or you can support these fine developers, enjoy a remarakable app, and find your eyes welling up with tears of retro happiness.

This is old school. It will make you nostalgic even if you weren’t there. Lots of nice touches (like being able to change the monitor glare ‘image’). The developer obviously put a lot of effort into it. You will feel super cool when seen working with this.

I may already be a bit too nostalgic for my own good, living in the past playing online text games via telnet, but Ill be darned if this didnt make it even more fun for me! Now Ive just got to find other ways to use this in my regular workflow and Ill be one happy geek. As far as the app itself, its completely solid. Crisp and responsive, plenty of customizability. I have zero complaints and theres only one thing on my wishlist that isnt already in here, and thats the sound that goes with degaussing the "monitor" (yes, you can do that - awesome, right?!). One bug, which is if your input extends multiple lines, the cursor does not retract to the previous line with backspace, but it does continue to delete the characters. Aside from that, I dont know what else could possibly be added to make this any better. Well done dev and team, well done.

So many monitors, TVs, etc to choose from. This is amazing, absolutely amazing. It’s adding a lot of fun to my terminal-heavy day. Also faking burn-in, brilliant!

I really like this. Guys that have been into computers for a long time, like me, can totally relate to the various settings. The favorites is a nice touch. I just love the idea of my i7 MacBook Pro with Retina dedicated to perfectly simulating a 30-year-old computer plugged into an equally-old analog TV display! SSH has never looked so bad… on purpose!