# Minitel Service Screen × PLATO Terminal Screen — composed image prompt
# IndexStyle — https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=minitel-screen+plato-screen
# Minitel Service Screen carries the structure and PLATO Terminal Screen appears as the accent.
# Style descriptors only. This prompt names no artist, studio, brand or work.

Produce four original images that take their structure from Minitel Service Screen (layout, 1980–2012) and their accent from PLATO Terminal Screen (style, 1972–1980s).

## What to make

Make the kind of thing Minitel Service Screen exists for: fitting a picture and running text onto one screen where both must sit on the same character grid, or designing a screen limited to eight colours, where emphasis can only come from reversed video and underlines. Choose one subject and hold it across all four.

## Structure comes from Minitel Service Screen

- A band carrying the name of the service along the top, with numbered choices running down the screen in one column
- Headings and pictures assembled from blocks that split a single character cell three down and two across
- Only eight saturated colours in play, with no intermediate hues and no gradation
- The place to type marked by a band of reversed video, with emphasis limited to reversal and an underline

Composition: Rule the 40 by 24 grid first, then allocate heading, body and input field onto it. Never overflow the rows, because each screen has to be complete in itself. Type and lettering: Everything sits on one fixed width cell. Since type size cannot change, emphasis has to come from reversed video and underlines alone.

## Accent comes from PLATO Terminal Screen, used sparingly

- Text and line drawing glowing in a single orange on a black panel
- Characters placed by coordinate rather than by line flow, cutting into the middle of a drawing
- Text and graphics sharing one surface, with no frames dividing the regions
- Questions answered by touching the screen itself

Let one material quality come from it: Black ground, one glowing orange and no midtones, with the density of dots and strokes carrying the tone.

## Colour and feeling

Build the ground on #FFFF00, carry the structure in #00FFFF and #000000, and let a single accent come from #8C3B00. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.
Feeling to carry: nostalgia, technique, intimacy.

## What goes wrong

- Minitel Service Screen: Smooth curves and midtones half erase the coarseness of the divided cell, and once that goes the grid holding the whole thing up stops being visible.
- PLATO Terminal Screen: Adding scanlines and bloom to make it feel like a cathode ray tube erases the one thing that defined this screen, a flat plasma panel that glows without smearing.

## Across the four

Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture.

## Constraints

- Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work.
- Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work.
- Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.

Design specs for each entry: https://indexstyle.org/styles/minitel-screen/design.md · https://indexstyle.org/styles/plato-screen/design.md