The killer thing about it is that it is a gateway to the shell, all the command line tooling and the best cross-platform UI.

Xerox PARC, Atari, Amiga and many others had shells, without needing to live on a teletype world.

It is only cross platform as long as it pretends to be a VT100.

It's not about needing to live in a teletype world, it is about how language/text is just a better interface for a general use computer. Computers primary feature is that they are programmable and an interface that allows you to take advantage of that is superior to one that doesn't. The programmable GUIs all failed to gain traction (smalltalk and like), that left the shell (and maybe spreadsheets) as the best UI for this. Though as AIs mature we might see a shift here as they could provide a programmable interface that could rival shell scripting.

The reason why GUIs became so popular so quickly after they were introduced is because text is not "just a better interface for a general use computer".

Like OP, I remember the days when command line was all you had, and even then we used stuff like TUI file managers to mitigate the pain of it.

But GUIs never took off as a UI for a general purpose computer, they became the UI for application on a general purpose computer. For them to be the former requires them to be programmable. Smalltalk is the best/most-famous example of a Graphical UI for a general purpose computer I can think of...

The main point is that for a general purpose computer the UI needs to integrate programming. Programming is how you use a computer. The shell (text) is currently the primary UI that inherently allows programming.

CLI is also specific to apps in practice, and I don't see any obvious difference between scripted CLI and scripted (with the likes of Active Scripting or AppleScript, or for that matter Tcl etc) GUI apps.

The difference is that you don't use Active Scripting, AppleScript, TCL, etc. as your primary UI. The shell is a script-able UI.

Is a modern phone a general purpose computer?

What kind-of UI does a modern phone present?

A modern phone is not a general purpose computer. They are proprietary, locked down devices. Appliances.

"The PinePhone is a smartphone that empowers users with control over the device. It is capable of running mainline Linux, features hardware privacy switches, and is designed for open-source enthusiasts."

Perhaps I simply failed to see your definition of "a general purpose computer".

Please say what rules must be passed to meet your definition.

Great that Microsoft, Apple and Google are on the right path then, with AI voice controlled and gestures OSes.

> I gladly only start a terminal window when I have to.

Exactly so. I am perfectly able to work entirely in a text/CLI world, and did for years. I don't becase I don't have to. I have better, richer alternative tools available to me now.

It was very odd to join Red Hat briefly in 2014 and meet passionate Vi advocates who were born after I tried Vi and discarded it as a horrible primitive editor.