smart terminal

smart terminal n.  1. A terminal that has enough computing
   capability to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end
   processing from the computer it talks to.  The development of
   workstations and personal computers has made this term and the
   product it describes semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear
   variants of the phrase `act like a smart terminal' used to
   describe the behavior of workstations or PCs with respect to
   programs that execute almost entirely out of a remote {server}'s
   storage, using said devices as displays.  2. obs. Any terminal with
   an addressable cursor; the opposite of a {glass tty}.  Today, a
   terminal with merely an addressable cursor, but with none of the
   more-powerful features mentioned in sense 1, is called a {dumb
   terminal}.

   There is a classic quote from Rob Pike (inventor of the {blit}
   terminal): "A smart terminal is not a smart*ass* terminal,
   but rather a terminal you can educate."  This illustrates a common
   design problem: The attempt to make peripherals (or anything else)
   intelligent sometimes results in finicky, rigid `special
   features' that become just so much dead weight if you try to use
   the device in any way the designer didn't anticipate.  Flexibility
   and programmability, on the other hand, are *really* smart.
   Compare {hook}.