What Does Text Mode Mean?
Text mode is a personal computer display setting that divides the display screen into 25 rows and 80 columns in order to display text without images. In text mode, each box can contain one character. Text mode contrasts with graphics mode, which features an array of pixels instead of text boxes.
Text mode is also known as character mode or alphanumeric mode.
Techopedia Explains Text Mode
Text mode initially came to prominence in the early 1970s, when video display text terminals started to replace teleprinters in human-computer interfacing. This simple display mode dominated the computer’s visual interface for much of that decade, before Apple and other smaller companies began introducing the graphic user interface into the mainstream.
Although text mode is obviously a very limited display method, it is beneficial in regard to its low memory consumption and fast screen manipulation. Text mode is no longer widely used, although it can be emulated on modern computers.