Text terminal


A text terminal, or often just terminal (sometimes text console) is a serial computer interface for text entry and display. Original text terminals were electronic computer terminals connected to computers by a serial line, but later computers have built-in system consoles, and terminal emulator programs that work in a graphical desktop environment. Graphical displays have not eradicated the text terminal as it is convenient for computer programmers and appropriate for command-line interfaces and text user interfaces. Most programming languages support standard streams for inputting and printing text, and it is simplest to connect the streams to a text terminal.