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I have come across the use of the term terminal, virtual terminals/consoles, real-text terminals but do not understand what terminal refers to. Does it refer to the screen that is in-front of me whilst I post this question or does it refer to something specific?

EDIT

I came across a similar post at What is the difference between shell, console, and terminal? and it seems to be similar to the one I posted although am still confused about the use of the sentence Decades ago, this was a physical device consisting of little more than a monitor and keyboard. What does this device look like and how is different to a monitor?

I am happy for a moderator to close or delete this post.

Community
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PeanutsMonkey
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2 Answers2

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Historically a 'terminal' was a dumb terminal connected to a mainframe - such as the VT100.

You run a "shell" on a "terminal emulator" to get a CLI interface to a system. "Terminal" in a modern context is shorthand for all this.

Journeyman Geek
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In most documentation and write-ups you read today, it is liberally interchanged with command line interface, shell, or command prompt.

Over the years its implied meaning has changed with the gradual disappearance of the physical hardware device.

  • Computer console, a text output device for system administration messages
  • Computer terminal, a hardware device for data entry and display in a computer system
  • Dumb terminal, a computer terminal that has limited functionality
  • Terminal emulator, an application program replacing a computer terminal

Wikipedia has a good amount of information on computer terminals.

h0tw1r3
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