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A text window where you type commands instead of clicking buttons.
A text-based interface to the operating system. The terminal application displays text and forwards your keystrokes to a shell program (bash, zsh, PowerShell), which interprets and runs commands.
Originally a physical teletype device. Modern 'terminal emulators' speak the VT100/xterm escape sequences over a pseudo-tty (PTY) to the shell. They handle cursor positioning, colors, and resize events out of band from regular text I/O.