What era? That is exactly the workflow of everyone using macOS and Windows around here.
Connecting to cloud environemnts is also done via a mix of RDP, VNC, Web GUI based tooling, akin to a modern X Windows replacement.
Windows is a good example of what I mean. Windows system administration has become unmistakably more text- and console-centric over time with the rise of PowerShell. Windows has started shipping an SSH service and made its graphical interface optional on the server.
The web has avoided falling into the same trap. Web UIs are, for the most part, delivered to the user as hypertext rather than rio-style pixels. They rarely hard-require a mouse and have adapted well to touchscreens. Graphics in new web UIs is usually vector (SVG).
Replicating the experience of using something like Smalltalk transcript window.
Of course Windows has SSH support, it needs to interoperate with UNIX, given that UNIX won the server room.
No need for SSH to talk with Windows Core/Nano, it can be done via Web GUI administration, or PowerShell remoting.
As far as I know from Pharo, the Smalltalk transcript logs plain text and is less capable than xterm. So what you care about is not the capabilities of the terminal but having a long-lived interactive session/REPL or a REPL integrated with an editor?
> No need for SSH to talk with Windows Core/Nano, it can be done via Web GUI administration, or PowerShell remoting.
I was thinking of the administrator connecting to Windows from their Mac or Linux/BSD machine. I don't know if that's a good idea compared to them getting a Windows VM and using Windows-to-Windows PowerShell remoting as you suggest.
Acme with shells are still far superior too. I can edit and script the editor's content and panes and run scripts on them. I can reuse Acme as a Mail, Usenet and maybe Irc client on the spot. I can cut, copy and paste with a mouse faster than a keyboard and yet maintain the Sam commands which are like the ex/ed ones but easier for some tasks (recursive searchs) without getting yourself mad with classic regexps. Heck, I can run filters a la vi under Acme but without being bound to a terminal and thus worried about the input/output on pipes.
You can certainly use the same Web GUIs from macOS and GNU/Linux as well, as for Powershell remoting, no need for VM when Powershell nowadays is written in modern portable .NET.
I mean the Smalltalk transcript and its capabilities alone, not Smalltalk as a whole. The transcript apparently just logs plain text; xterm supports color and text formatting like bold and italic. I'm guessing that, per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47058849, you'd want fancy text displayed separately in the GUI.
> as for Powershell remoting, no need for VM when Powershell nowadays is written in modern portable .NET.
It looks like multiplatform PowerShell remoting uses SSH: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/secur.... You'd get a VM to use WinRM.
With rio windows I get an actual text stream to copy and paste (and grep and wahtnot), not the text, terminal control codes for bold and colour and often DEC decorations such as the ones in Nethack for walls.