Good post.
I was born in '83, so when my parents got my brother and I a Nintendo in the late 80s it was already a few years old. I remember Duck Hunt and Super Mario and Punchout. My favorite games from childhood were actually from the 90s since that was when I was old enough to actually play something like Ocarina of Time.
I had never even heard of text only games until I read Ready Player One, and then after that I downloaded Dungeon of Daggeroth to try it out.
I had a soccer manager game that was text only! You could "hack" into the program and alter it so that you (for example) were given loads of extra money every week. I didn't have a problem with text only - our expectations were extremely low!