The terminal of the future

Yes, this was my first thought too. I haven't used a hardware text terminal since the 80s so maybe I don't get where the TFA is coming from? It starts out by stating "This post is part 6 of a multi-part series called 'the computer of the next 200 years'". Given that context, why is the focus on the evolution of 1980s VT100-type protocols? I'm at home and there are over a half dozen different devices within 25 ft which come standard with an HTML browser. Sure, modern browsers have some incompatibilities at the edges but if you're in need of a multi-decade, platform agnostic, lingua franca then W3C minimal baseline HTML/CSS + ECMAscript seems like the obvious winner (with no viable second place really).

Don't get me wrong, I'd be quite interested in a vintage computing discussion on the evolution of VT-100/220 etc terminal protocols. There were some interesting things done into the 90s. That's actually what I clicked in expecting. Of course, those were all supplanted by either XWindows (which I never got to use much) or eventually HTML/CSS. And if we're talking more broadly about structured page description languages, there's no shortage of alternatives from NAPLPS to Display Postscript.

I don’t know how you work, but I spend a good portion of my day in a terminal while working on AI-type projects.

The terminal never left.

I'd like to make the distinction between text, indeed, word/command based interfaces and "terminal".

It so happens that right now one is synonymous with the other but there's no instrinsic requirement.

There's probably something to be said for the inherent constraints imposed by the terminal protocol, but, again, we can build the same things without that.