You could try command line chess engines.
Try Toga II, using Polyglot.
I'm a command-line fetishist too, but not when it comes to chess. ASCII graphics would not be conducive to easy analysis. You could use high-bit hatch characters for the black squares, but you couldn't super-impose letters denoting pieces on top of a hatch character. I guess you could create your own character set, but that would be fraught with compatibility issues.
Umm... actually you might be able to use video-inverse ANSI control sequences to invert all black squares I guess. Hmmm, I might have a play with that.
I don't know if this exists, but it would be cool - You want to review a game, but you're at work. So, you download your pgn file, go into a command line environment and type:
cchess mygame.pgn -p2w
and the programme loads up mygame.pgn, and displays the position at move 2, white's go - in nothing but ascii type characters.
Then, allow for branching, comments etc, by typing
cchess mygame.pgn -b2w qe2
or
cchess mygame.pgn -c2w "Cunard Defense"
Anyone with any experience of a command-line only programme with features such as these?
Windows is great, but wouldn't it be good to have chess at your fingertips without all that messing about with mice getting in the way!