---
title: The Matrix digital rain for Unix terminals
date: 2024-01-12T00:00:00+08:00
author: W. D. Sadeep Madurange
---

The famous digital rain from the movie The Matrix implemented in C for 
the Unix terminal without using any GUI/TUI kits: 

<video style="max-width:100%;" controls="" poster="thumb.png">
  <source src="matrix.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

Domsson's {{< link src="https://github.com/domsson/fakesteak" class="external"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" >}}Fakesteak{{< /link >}} inspired
this project. I added the following features while trying to keep the original
project's simplicity intact as much as possible:

- Customize the rain color to match the theme of the setup.
- Support for UTF-32 characters.
- The ghosting effect of old monochrome displays.
- The rain more closely resembles the original from the first movie.

To use them, you need a terminal emulator that supports 24-bit RGB colors and
Unicode characters. 

The background, head, and tail colors of the rain can be configured via
`COLOR_BG_*`, `COLOR_HD_*`, and `COLOR_TL_*` settings. The `UNICODE_MIN` and
`UNICODE_MAX` values control the character set used for the rain. For instance,
use `0x30A1` and `0x30F6` for Katakana:

<img style="width: 100%;" src="katakana.png" />

Happy ricing!

Files: [source.tar.gz](source.tar.gz)