Phosphor – Matrix-style digital rain

A computer terminal window titled "Phosphor" displaying cascading green digital characters and symbols in a Matrix-style code rain effect against a black background.

While walking the dog I wondered how hard it would be to recreate the Matrix digital rain, a visual that’s lived rent-free in my head since 1999.

1999 seems like both yesterday and a million years ago.

Turns out it was pretty easy for Claude. With a brief description prompt of what I wanted, it got to work. I added the idea of occasional RGB ‘threads’ falling through for a little flourish.

I think using the superpowers agent harness was a bit of overkill, but it helped me learn the process.

My desktop computer runs Windows, so Claude decided to make a .Net executable that runs inside terminal. I don’t even have to run an app. It’s just a pulldown inside of terminal.

Windows Terminal dropdown menu showing various shell options including PowerShell, Command Prompt, Azure Cloud Shell, Phosphor, and Developer tools, along with settings and utility options at the bottom.

An idea while walking the dog turned into a working app before lunch.

Creating things on a whim feels a little magical.

The code is up at Github: https://github.com/cruftbox/phosphor

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