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The Difference Between the Shell and the Terminal

Manik on November 19, 2022

Whenever we give commands to a computer to perform a specific task using text, we refer to it as using the command line interface. When using a com...
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steve poling

It may be helpful to establish context by recalling the state of computing in the 1970s when all these things were new. You'd hook up a computer to a separate device. This could be anything like a teletype machine located in another city to a CRT/keyboard like the ADM-3 "dumb" terminal. Or a VT-100 "smart" terminal. These differed in the extent to which they could interpret special characters from the computer to change placement and (much later) color. Today the Gnome terminal, MacOS ITerm2, or Microsoft Terminal support much "smarter" operations, but they are just evolutionary steps from the humble beginning of a teletype typing onto a scroll of paper.

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Manik

Thanks for that insight! On the surface it seems we have traversed a long journey but behind the scene it's the core computing hasn't changed much. If you understand how things work behind the scenes it's very easy to add it up.

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Raí B. Toffoletto

Nice article! Kudos for keeping it simple. But I think you could also have mentioned TTYs, those are the first layer of emulations over the shell =D

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Manik

Very good point, was just wondering that I'll take it too far as many developers won't even relate to TTYs. So just stuck to the environment that most of us are used to working. But great to hear from you appreciate the in-depth knowledge 👍

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Adam Crockett 🌀

What’s the difference between a browser and an internet? 🤔 spiritually one cannot exist without the other.

Sorry for my useless unrelated philosophy

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Andrew Baisden

Great article its quite common for people to think that Shell and the Terminal are one and the same when really there is differences.

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Javier Fernández

Nice, thks for sharing!

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Md Moeen Ajaz Khan

This is great article.

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Manik

Thank you 😊

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Swastik Baranwal

Thanks for this wonderful explanation!

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Manik

Glad you found it helpful ☺️

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Chirag Aggarwal

Thanks for that wonderful explaination

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Manik

I'm glad you like it 😊

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Julia 👩🏻‍💻 GDE

This is so interesting, deep knowledge of what is actually going on behind the scene when I as a frontend developwe am interacting with my computer.

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Manik

I agree with you it's very facinating. At the end of the day it all boils down to 0s and 1s 😊

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Seeingthebrightside.com

informative thanks for the post. .

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Manik • Edited

I'm glad you liked it 👍

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ADARSH KUMAR

Thanks for the chapter. This is the first article I read on Dev.to , truly insightful.

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Manik

I'm happy you liked it 😊