I recently added a new “feature” onto my personal portfolio: a hidden terminal page that is reminscient of the Command Prompt or other server interfaces of operating systems.
The reason I implemented this was simple: as an easter egg. A way for me to say funny jokes/references to my personal lore/canon without being explicit on the website. If you make it to the terminal, and start playing around, then you likely have some sort of humor that I hope to exploit (more or less).
Tne neat part about the terminal is that it is very easy for me to add new commands and outputs. The not neat part for the end-user is that any visual output (say: image, video, or audio file) is shielded with only pause/play/exit functions available. Of course, if you know how to circumvent it, all the power to you. But it’s designed in a way that is somewhat mysterious yet goofy at the same time.
Let’s look at three distinct examples of commands:
- statement – plays a .mp4 file that conveys as my “statement” to a lot of questions I’m asked (mostly for those I can’t necessarily answer to.)
- dc – simple text reply
- freelance – opens a new tab to schedule a complimentary consultation on a new website (which you should totally book by the way).
The point of all this being, it’s a little fun hub I can update from time-to-time, and there’s no harm in it overall. I for one am looking forward to continuing to minimalistically update it as needed.
You can visit it now at zacharyaustrager.com/terminal.
p.s. no, I did not code it myself. Claude helped. I may publish the source code on GitHub if I make modifications to it myself.
p.p.s. you will notice that there is no native “help” function. Try “hint” or look around my vast network of sites/features/things I do.