Comment by elch

3 hours ago

Real UNIX terminal:

https://youtu.be/Pr1XXvSaVUQ

Also terminal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUd8yVZ2kA

Terminal:

https://youtu.be/frMwsDTjmAs?t=493

the first and second are graphics terminals which is muddling up the definition. of course they were called terminals back then until we decided to make a distinction. what they are called is not the point. the point is the distinction. for today's discussion terminal means text without graphics, as shown in the third video.

the real question is why are we still using text terminals?

the short answer is that on remote connections graphics is still a performance issue. in fact the popular solution to making remote graphics performant is webbrowsers. they are the graphical terminals of today.

if i want to build a graphical interface to a remote service, then i build a webinterface.

locally, the answer is historical tools, and that text interfaces are easier to develop and still more efficient to use. but not easier. especially commandline tools without an actual visual interface.

i just had this situation. the dolphin filemanager has a feature to add tags and comments to files. the interface is very clunky. but there is a commandline that lets me set those tags and comments which is much more efficient once you learned how to use that command.