Text User Interface - Other Uses

Other Uses

• The full screen editor of the Commodore 64 8-bit computers was advanced in its market segment for its time. Users could move the cursor over the entire screen area, entering and editing BASIC program lines, as well as direct mode commands. All Commodore 8-bit computers used the PETSCII character set, which included character glyphs for making a TUI.
• Apple's Macintosh Programmer's Workshop programming environment included Commando, a TUI shell. It was the inspiration for BBEdit's shell worksheet.
• A TUI was the primary interface of the Oberon operating system as released in 1988 . In contrast to the so far mentioned uses of text user interfaces, the Oberon system did not use a console or terminal based mode but required a large bit-mapped display on which text was used as primary target for mouse clicks. Commands of the form Module.Procedure parameters were activated by a middle-mouse click. Any text displayed on the screen could be edited and used as a so-called tool text serving as user-configurable menu, even the output of a previous command. Since it did not use graphical elements, but text elements, it was termed a text user interface. For a short introduction see p. 3-4 of the first published report on it.
• Later Apple II models included MouseText, a set of graphical glyphs used for making a TUI.
• The Corvus Concept computer of 1982 used a function key-based text interface on a full-page pivoting display.