diff --git a/nixos/tests/drawterm.nix b/nixos/tests/drawterm.nix
index 1d444bb55433..3594343853c0 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/drawterm.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/drawterm.nix
@@ -38,11 +38,24 @@ let
         def drawterm_running():
             machine.succeed("pgrep drawterm")
 
+        # cage is a bit wonky here.
+        # it seems to lag behind drawing
+        # and somehow needs a single input character
+        # in order to get the first prompt to show up.
+        # This is not present in any other compositor
+        # as far as I know, and after spending a couple
+        # hours with the upstream source trying to deduce
+        # how to perhaps fix it, I figured just polling is OK.
+        @polling_condition
+        def cpu_shown_up():
+            machine.send_chars(".")
+            machine.wait_for_text("cpu", 1)
+
         start_all()
 
         machine.wait_for_unit("graphical.target")
         drawterm_running.wait() # type: ignore[union-attr]
-        machine.wait_for_text("cpu")
+        cpu_shown_up.wait() # type: ignore[union-attr]
         machine.send_chars("cpu\n")
         machine.wait_for_text("auth")
         machine.send_chars("cpu\n")
diff --git a/pkgs/tools/admin/drawterm/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/admin/drawterm/default.nix
index 3e4c15faf14b..c83b3dfd6597 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/admin/drawterm/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/admin/drawterm/default.nix
@@ -19,13 +19,13 @@
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation {
   pname = "drawterm";
-  version = "unstable-2024-02-18";
+  version = "unstable-2024-03-20";
 
   src = fetchFrom9Front {
     owner = "plan9front";
     repo = "drawterm";
-    rev = "bcf1eb425dd4c90a3bfcd004f6aee3854259da78";
-    hash = "sha256-aUQ6ay2ky9NzVUZvWyHc/GqPlCdhGpXTY8GGytJSC6g=";
+    rev = "77b464a5d5648bb646467111b8faf719cd5c46b6";
+    hash = "sha256-3J/Fa3NXxUieEqRcCepGdd0ktxQFKhyY4z8Pvcq94Kw=";
   };
 
   enableParallelBuilding = true;