Try Google Images Terminal: Back to the 80s
Quick Facts
- Summary
- Browse saved image results in a BBS-style terminal that renders each picture as ASCII art.
- Creator
- N. Landsteiner
- Launched
- 2012
- Status
- Available on elgooG
Try the Easter Egg
How It Was Made
The Core Idea
Google Images Terminal is the image-search companion to N. Landsteiner’s 2012 Google Terminal project. It presents a Google-style image search through a simulated BBS, a bulletin board system that users once reached by dialing in over a phone line.
The display converts saved image results into ASCII art, using text characters to represent their light and dark areas.
Inspiration and Development
Like Google Terminal, the project draws on Squirrel-Monkey.com’s “If Google were invented in the 80s” video. ASCII rendering extends the concept to images that can be displayed on a text-based terminal.
The Easter Egg Experience
What Stands Out
After the simulated startup, the terminal announces its image-search mode and presents a command prompt where you can begin.
Each image appears as a monochrome picture made of text characters. Use the numbered options to open its file or source page, move to another result, or return home. In the Options menu, you can change the colors, show the keyboard, or add scan lines.
How It Works
After the simulated connection and login, type “Apple II” or “Commodore 64” at the search prompt and press Enter. Other queries open a menu of these two saved examples, since the original Google image-search connection is no longer available.
The renderer maps the light and dark areas of each saved image to letters, punctuation, and spaces, producing a text-based preview. Use 3 for the next result, 4 for the previous one, or 0 to return home. The arrow keys also move between results.
How to Try It
- Click the button above to open Google Images Terminal and wait for the simulated modem connection and login to finish.
- Type “Apple II” or “Commodore 64” and press Enter to load a saved image search.
- Watch the ASCII preview appear. Press 3 for the next result or 4 for the previous one; you can also use the arrow keys.
- Press 1 to open the image file, 2 to open its source page, or 0 to return home.
This is an unofficial mass:werk project, not a Google product. It is a companion to Google Terminal: one page imagines web search on a BBS, and this one imagines what image search would look like if every picture had to be made of text.
Both pages let you change the screen colors, show an on-screen keyboard, and turn scan lines on or off through the Options menu.
Final Thoughts
Choose a preview and look for the picture’s outline among the letters and punctuation. Then press 1 to open the image file and compare the two: the terminal uses clusters of characters to suggest the original shapes and shading.
Try the Easter Egg
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is Google Images Terminal?
Google Images Terminal is an unofficial project by N. Landsteiner of mass:werk, released in 2012 as a companion to Google Terminal.
It imagines Google image search on a 1980s-style BBS terminal, with a dial-up start, glowing text, old-style screen colors, and keyboard controls.
Saved image results are converted into ASCII art: monochrome pictures composed of text characters.