<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div>I think it counts! I was suspecting TUIs were either an IBM thing or UNIX thing—not sure if it’s < 1970 direction or > 1970 direction. In UNIX, someone must have added code for the cursor addressing for CRT screens b/c on printer terminals moving back a page … wasn’t possible?</div><div><br></div><div>Adam</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Jun 9, 2025, at 11:21 AM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><meta charset="UTF-8"><div dir="ltr" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div dir="ltr">On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:14, Adam Koszek <<a href="mailto:adam@koszek.com">adam@koszek.com</a>> wrote:</div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div>Hi,<div><br></div><div><div><div><div style="">I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect. </div></div></div><div><div style=""><br></div></div><div>Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their earliest instances?</div><div><br></div><div>Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through some old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated interactions existed before Vi:</div><div><br></div><div><div style=""><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen</a></div></div><div><br></div><div>Some terminals with block display:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270</a></div><div><br></div><div>^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may have had TUIs before.</div><div><br></div><div>Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Does this count? I was just looking at it the other day. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System</a></div><div><br></div><div>I have a feeling we're going to get away from UNIX pretty quickly here.</div><div><br></div><div>-Henry </div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>