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 local 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
smartass 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.