Typing in words and numbers transmits an enormous amount of information very quickly,
This reminded me of NASA 'Mission Control' used for Apollo.
To eyes used to the movies or video games the consoles look bizarre: there are no graphs, no icons, no _pictures_. All the data came in, and went out, as numbers, or text.
They did it like that because to the engineers on the console the numbers could be grasped more quickly and meant more than a picture.