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I don't know when the term became widespread for gui-style terminal programs, but the wikipedia entry has existed for more than 20 years so I think it is an older term than you imply.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Text-based_user_i...
Sorry, but this 65 yo grey-beard disagrees. A TUI to me, back in the 80s/90s, was something that ran in the terminal and was almost always ncurses-based. This was back when I was still using ADM-3A serial terminals, none of that new-fangled PCs stuff.
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They aren’t the same thing. TUI refers to interactive ncurses-like interfaces. Vim has a TUI, ls does not
I’m fairly certain this terminology has been around since at least the early aughts.