Terminal (OS X)
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 Terminal 2.2 running the top program under Mac OS |
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
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| Stable release | 2.3 (309) / June 11, 2012 |
| Preview release | 2.3 (309) / June 11, 2012 |
| Operating system | OS X |
| Type | Terminal emulator |
| License | Bundled with OS X |
| Website | http://www.apple.com/osx/apps/all.html#terminal |
Terminal (also referred to as Terminal.app) is the terminal emulator included in Apple's OS X operating system.[1]
It originated in OS X's predecessors, NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP.
A terminal emulator is a purely text-based system, in contrast to the general user experience of OS-X, which is graphical. A terminal emulator provides an environment for Unix shells, which allows the user to interact with the operating system of any Unix-like computer in a text-based manner through the command line interface to the operating system.
Terminal.app is used to access the system of the Mac on which it is running, and, is used to access any other unix-like system. On the Mac, Terminal.app is used by those users who need to access that Mac's operating system at a low level, and, it is used generally by developers, programmers, etc., as a general-purpose terminal emulator, as on any other Unix-like computer.
As of 2012, Terminal.app emulates ansi, dtterm, nsterm, rxvt, vt52, vt100, vt102, xterm, xterm-color and xterm-color256 (the terminal emulated is chosen via a popup in the application's preferences).
Terminal.app features include tabs and customization of fonts and colors.
The defaults command is often used to set hidden settings via the shell and is only found in Nextstep-derived systems like OS X.
