For future reference (and anyone following along later), that is an "ncurses" terminal application.

You should see the customized JBHIFI terminal + keyboard.

what are those? searching for JBHIFI terminal only brings up a store in Australia of that name selling square POS terminals.

Bloomberg terminals also have a custom keyboard and are essentially a terminal program.

Yeah JB Hi-Fi is a local retailer in Aus (guessing it's like a Best Buy but a strong focus on music CDs originally), it's probably a reference to the software the staff uses. Haven't had a chance to look over their shoulder at that one.

So should we be doing demos in Bash, with an ncurses or gum workflow before going back to write the proper system in C?

I dont see the problem with this. What is "Gum workflow" in this context ?

Neither do I.

It was supposed to be read:

A [ncurses or gum] workflow.

Gum being an alternative method of making a Bash UI.

https://github.com/charmbracelet/gum

Thanks, thats a neat tool!

I dont seem to have a shot of the terminal app, but I do for the keyboard:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fLeDNp8rU7wN7siXA

I did an internship there like 10 years ago at the end of my uni course, where one of my projects was to do a proof of concept of re-implementing their point-of-sale application using web technologies, maintaining the DOS-y look, feel, keyboard shortcuts etc.

At the time I had no idea why. In hindsight, it's hilarious. I'm guessing it was the result of a clash between someone that wanted to use modern tech for the sake of it and someone representing the users that told them to get fucked, probably went through 15 meetings before eventually getting palmed off on the intern so it didn't pick up too much steam (probably the only good decision that was made in the whole process).

I remember that being a key difference between the graphical / modelling software SoftImage and Maya. With the former a TUI and the latter a GUI. The Maya approach won out because getting new people productive quickly was more important than their longer term productivity it seems. Maybe it has something to do with turnover but maybe there are people who can do good creative work but can't adapt to using a TUI or at least are frightened of it.

I think you’re onto something with this. SAP power users can input data at blazing speeds, because they remember so many of the codes. So this definitely isn’t just a GUI vs TUI paradigm.