Terminal

Definitions

1. A text interface for interacting with a computer, in which the user types commands and reads the program's output as characters on screen. Originally a physical device, first teletypes that printed on paper and then video display terminals such as DEC's VT100 of 1978, connected to a remote computer over a serial line. Modern terminals are software emulators, such as iTerm2, Windows Terminal, GNOME Terminal, and Alacritty, that reproduce that behaviour, including the escape sequences inherited from the VT100 which control cursor movement, colour, and screen clearing. The terminal is often confused with the shell: the terminal only draws text and forwards keystrokes, while the shell, such as bash or zsh, is the program that interprets commands. On Unix-like systems the connection between them is a pseudo-terminal, or pty, which is why ssh sessions and tmux can behave like physical terminals.

   In plain English: The text-based window where you type commands to control your computer, beloved by developers who prefer keyboards over mice.

   Example: "I live in the terminal — IDE is just a fancy text editor that happens to have a built-in one."

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