Ratty is a GPU-rendered terminal emulator built in Rust with Ratatui, featuring inline 3D graphics and a spinning rat cursor, inspired by TempleOS.
Key Takeaways
Built with Rust and Ratatui; GPU rendering enables real-time 3D presentation modes inside the terminal.
Supports inline 3D graphics as a first-class feature, not a bolted-on extension.
Spinning rat cursor is a deliberate UI element, not just an easter egg.
TempleOS is cited as a direct design inspiration, connecting it to Terry A. Davis’s GPU-in-terminal ideas.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters frame Ratty as part of a broader wave of terminal evolution; Kitty’s protocol extensions are the reference benchmark for how far terminals can go.
The SSH + GPU acceleration gap is an open question: GPU-rendered terminals typically lose their rendering pipeline over remote sessions, and no solution is mentioned.
Historical context dominates the thread: multiple commenters tie inline terminal graphics back to 1981 Xerox workstations and Lisp machines, positioning UNIX terminals as perpetually catching up.
Notable Comments
@sigseg1v: Asks whether the GPU pipeline could also fix poor 2D image/rasterization quality in terminals, or whether a fundamental limit exists.
@CTDOCodebases: “Don’t worry, all of these dependencies are worth it” – flags the dependency footprint as a potential adoption friction point.
