The Terminal Academy

25 eras of computing, 661 missions, one terminal. Dial a 1990s BBS, master DOS, live in a Linux shell, configure a router, run containers, defend a server, or program a graphics card from CGA to WebGPU. Free, in your browser, no signup.

Most tutorials tell you. This one lets you do: you type the real commands and the machine answers, era by era, the way it actually did.

Every era is open from the first minute. Nothing is locked behind another track, so you can start at the BBS in 1978 or at a modern GPU in 2023 and move whenever you like. Missions still award XP, each era still ends in a boss mission, and the expansion tracks still carry a written exam and a certificate for anyone who wants to finish one properly.

Classic shells

1978 · The BBS
Dial a real 1990s bulletin board on a US Robotics 14.4: ANSI menus, message areas, file downloads, door games. The internet before the internet.
5 missions
1981 · The Command Line
Master MS-DOS the way it was learned: DIR, batch files, AUTOEXEC.BAT, CHKDSK, DEBUG.
31 missions
1991 · The Open Machine
Live in a Unix shell: ls, grep, sed, awk, pipes, ssh, systemd. The 1969 model that still secures the internet today.
43 missions
2006 · The Object Shell
Cross the leap to PowerShell: dir becomes Get-ChildItem, and the pipe stops passing text and starts passing objects.
8 missions

Code and data

1974 · Relational Queries
Ask a real database questions (SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, COUNT, GROUP BY, JOIN) against seeded tables that answer for real.
6 missions
1991 · The Readable Language
A working Python REPL (print, arithmetic, variables, strings, lists, loops, len and sum) that actually evaluates what you type.
7 missions
2005 · Version Control
Learn Git the way it clicks: init, add, commit, branch, merge, log, on a live practice repo.
8 missions
2022 · The Model Era
Work language models from a terminal: local model runners, tokenization, sampling, system prompts, tool calls, RAG, injection defence.
31 missions · exam + certificate

Networking

1969 · The Wire
Work a Linux host's network stack from the command line: interfaces, /etc/hosts, DNS resolution, routes, ports and packet captures.
31 missions · exam + certificate
1993 · Cisco IOS
Configure a simulated Cisco router from user EXEC upward: hostnames, interfaces, VLANs, static and dynamic routing, access lists.
35 missions · exam + certificate
2002 · FortiOS
Drive a simulated FortiGate CLI: interface addressing, admin access, firewall policies, NAT, static routes and diagnostic commands.
35 missions · exam + certificate

Infrastructure and operations

2006 · The Elastic Frontier
Learn cloud fundamentals on a simulated provider CLI: regions and zones, instance pricing models, storage, identity and billing.
34 missions · exam + certificate
2009 · Ship It
Operate one Linux server end to end: systemd units, deploys and rollbacks, users and permissions, disks, logs and networking.
34 missions · exam + certificate
2013 · Containers
Run containers for real: pull images, publish ports, read logs, mount volumes, write a Dockerfile, wire services together with Compose.
33 missions · exam + certificate
2015 · Container Orchestra
Drive kubectl against a simulated three-node cluster: pods, deployments, services, namespaces, storage and failure triage.
34 missions · exam + certificate

Security

2004 · Blue Team Ops
Defensive operations on real log data: hunt failed logins in auth.log, cut fields with awk, read firewall rules, work an incident.
35 missions · exam + certificate

Graphics

1981 · CGA
Program the 1981 IBM CGA: 320x200 in four colours, the B800 framebuffer, palette selection, dithering and composite artifact colour.
30 missions · exam + certificate
1984 · EGA
Program the EGA: 640x350 in 16 colours out of 64, four bit planes, the latch registers, palette registers and hardware scrolling.
27 missions · exam + certificate
1987 · VGA
Program VGA mode 13h: 256 colours, the 18-bit DAC, poking the A000 framebuffer, palette cycling, Mode X and demoscene effects.
27 missions · exam + certificate
1991 · SVGA
Step up to VESA VBE: 640x480 and beyond, bank switching, colour depths from 8-bit to 24-bit, quantization and image file formats.
29 missions · exam + certificate
1992 · 3D SOFTWARE
Build a software 3D renderer by hand: DDA raycasting, textured walls, fixed-point maths, BSP sectors, projection and depth sorting.
29 missions · exam + certificate
1996 · 3D ACCEL
Walk the fixed-function pipeline: model, view and projection matrices, triangle rasterisation, shading, texture mapping, the z-buffer.
27 missions · exam + certificate
2001 · SHADERS
Write GLSL in a live fragment-shader sandbox: the programmable pipeline, varyings and uniforms, signed distance fields, lighting, errors.
30 missions · exam + certificate
2011 · WebGL
Call raw WebGL from JavaScript with no library: contexts and limits, buffers, shader programs, GL state, draw calls and textures.
28 missions · exam + certificate
2023 · MODERN GPU
Modern GPU work: explicit APIs, WebGPU adapters, WGSL compute shaders, ray and path tracing, denoising, upscaling, tensor cores.
24 missions · exam + certificate

How it works

You learn by doing: type a real command, get a real response, in a terminal that behaves like the machine it is imitating. A Maximus BBS answers a 14.4 modem, DOS runs on a 386, a Unix shell pipes text, PowerShell pipes objects, a FortiGate wants its configuration tables, and a CGA card only ever gives you four colours. Missions award XP, each era finishes with a boss mission, and an optional AI mentor is there if you get stuck.

The nine expansion tracks and the nine graphics eras also have a written exam: 20 server-graded questions with a pass mark of 14. Clear the boss, pass the exam, and the academy issues a certificate. Everything is free and there is no signup to start.

Open the terminal →