Computer terminal in the context of "Escape key"

In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI) (alternately terminal user interfaces, to reflect a dependence upon the properties of computer terminals and not just text), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an early form of human–computer interaction, before the advent of bitmapped displays and modern conventional graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Like modern GUIs, they can use the entire screen area and may accept mouse and other inputs. They may also use color and often structure the display using box-drawing characters such as ┌ and ╣. The modern context of use is usually a terminal emulator.

A command-line interface (CLI), sometimes called a command-line shell, is a means of interacting with software via commands – each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user-friendly alternative to the non-interactive mode available with punched cards.

For nearly three decades, a CLI was the most common interface for software, but today a graphical user interface (GUI) is more common. Nonetheless, many programs such as operating system and software development utilities still provide CLI.

Uploading refers to transmitting data from one computer system to another through means of a network. Common methods of uploading include: uploading via web browsers, FTP clients, and terminals (SCP/SFTP). Uploading can be used in the context of (potentially many) clients that send files to a central server. While uploading can also be defined in the context of sending files between distributed clients, such as with a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol like BitTorrent, the term file sharing is more often used in this case. Moving files within a computer system, as opposed to over a network, is called file copying.

Uploading directly contrasts with downloading, where data is received over a network. In the case of users uploading files over the internet, uploading is often slower than downloading as many internet service providers (ISPs) offer asymmetric connections, which offer more network bandwidth for downloading than uploading.

An interactive kiosk is a computer terminal featuring specialized hardware and software that provides access to information and applications for communication, commerce, entertainment, or education.

By 2010, the largest bill pay kiosk network was AT&T, which allowed for phone customers to pay their bills. Verizon and Sprint have also introduced similar units over time.

In the context of telecommunications, a terminal is a device which ends a telecommunications link and is the point at which a signal enters or leaves a network. Examples of terminal equipment include telephones, fax machines, computer terminals, printers and workstations.

An end instrument is a piece of equipment connected to the wires at the end of a telecommunications link. In telephony, this is usually a telephone connected to a local loop. End instruments that relate to data terminal equipment include printers, computers, barcode readers, automated teller machines (ATMs) and the console ports of routers.

The Apple Computer 1 (Apple-1), later known predominantly as the Apple I (written with a Roman numeral), is an 8-bit personal computer electrically designed by Steve Wozniak and released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. The company was initially formed to sell the Apple I – its first product – and would later become the world's largest technology company. The idea of starting a company and selling the computer came from Wozniak's friend and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

The key differentiator of the Apple I was that it included video display terminal circuitry, allowing it to connect to a low-cost composite video monitor and keyboard instead of an expensive accompanying terminal such as the Teletype Model 33 commonly used by other early personal computers. The Apple I and the Sol-20 were some of the earliest home computers to have this capability.

The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer introduced in 1974 by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) based on the Intel 8080 CPU. It was the first commercially successful personal computer. Interest in the Altair 8800 grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. It was sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics, and in other hobbyist magazines. The Altair 8800 had no built-in screen or video output, so it would have to be connected to a serial terminal or teletype to have any output. To connect it to a terminal, a serial interface card had to be installed. Alternatively, the Altair could be programmed using its front-panel switches.

According to the personal computer pioneer Harry Garland, the Altair 8800 was the product that catalyzed the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. The computer bus designed for the Altair became a de facto standard in the form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC.

A monochrome monitor is a type of computer monitor in which computer text and images are displayed in varying tones of only one color, as opposed to a color monitor that can display text and images in multiple colors. They were very common in the early days of computing, from the 1960s through the 1980s, before color monitors became widely commercially available. They are still widely used in applications such as computerized cash register systems, owing to the age of many registers. Green screen was the common name for a monochrome monitor using a green "P1" phosphor screen; the term is often misused to refer to any block mode display terminal, regardless of color, e.g., IBM 3279, 3290.

Abundant in the early-to-mid-1980s, they succeeded Teletype terminals and preceded color CRTs and later LCDs as the predominant visual output device for computers.