Struggling to understand the need, other than "it would be fun to put this on a Gameboy Color".
Discussion
It would run on pretty much anything. The client could run locally or could run on the node and be accessed over SSH
It doesn't require a webserver or poking new holes in the firewall on the node.
TUI's are cool. They make great admin tools, (e.g. htop or kmon). Raspiblitz has a pretty limited menu-driven one.
True, ssh is a valid use case, but accessing my wallet remotely seems risky.
I mean, many node runners already connect some phone app to their lightning wallet for remote access.
Even if not a wallet, maybe just node management software. Where you could get network stats, do block exploration, manage your peers/channels, get routing reports, etc...
I hate having to run a web app and some REST middleware just to get all that, and CLI work is repetitive and time consuming.
Lightning seems like a special case to me because it has to be a hot wallet, but I see your point.
I think part of the reason is people expect sexy applications now. I would guess not many people know how to program what you're asking for. How many young programmers have even heard of ncurses?