Computer terminal

The DEC VT100, a widely emulated computer terminal
IBM 2741, a widely emulated computer terminal in the 1960s and 1970s
(keyboard/printer)

A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing[1] data from, a computer or a computing system.[2] The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal[3] and predated the use of a computer screen by decades. Starting in the mid-1970s with machines such as the Sphere 1, Sol-20, and Apple I, terminal circuitry began to be integrated into personal and workstation computer systems, with the computer handling character generation and outputting to a CRT display such as a computer monitor or, sometimes, a consumer TV.

Early terminals were inexpensive devices but very slow compared to punched cards or paper tape for input; with the advent of time-sharing systems, terminals slowly pushed these older forms of interaction from the industry. Related development were the improvement of terminal technology and the introduction of inexpensive video displays.

The function of a terminal is typically confined to transcription and input of data; a device with significant local, programmable data-processing capability may be called a "smart terminal" or fat client. A terminal that depends on the host computer for its processing power is called a "dumb terminal"[4] or a thin client.[5][6] In the era of serial (RS-232) terminals there was a conflicting usage of the term "smart terminal" as a dumb terminal with no user-accessible local computing power but a particularly rich set of control codes for manipulating the display; this conflict was not resolved before hardware serial terminals became obsolete.

A personal computer can run terminal emulator software that replicates functions of a real-world terminal, sometimes allowing concurrent use of local programs and access to a distant terminal host system, either over a direct serial connection or over a network using, e.g., SSH.

  1. ^ E.g., displaying, printing, punching.
  2. ^ similar to a paraphrase of an Oxford English Dictionary definition. "What is the etymology of "[computer] terminal"?". Based on OED, B.2.d. (terminal), the paraphrase says that a terminal is a device for feeding data into a computer or receiving its output, especially one that can be used by a person for two-way communication with a computer.
  3. ^ "The Teletype Story" (PDF).
  4. ^ "What is dumb terminal? definition and meaning". BusinessDictionary.com. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2019.
  5. ^ Thin clients came later than dumb terminals
  6. ^ the term "thin client" was coined in 1993) Waters, Richard (June 2, 2009). "Is this, finally, the thin client from Oracle?". Archived from the original on December 10, 2022.