I think you typically use something like ncurses. It literally has a function that allows you to print stuff at the location you want.

No idea how it actually works underneath the hood though .

In case you're curious, such library typically relies on the terminal's support of some character sequences, especially using the characters with codes in the 0-31 range.
For example in a MS-DOS or Linux/Unix console, printing the C string: "\x1B[10;12H" would move the cursor to position 10, 12
( \x1B is the single character of ASCII code 27: 'ESC')
http://www.real-world-systems.com/docs/ANSIcode.html

I don't think cmd.exe supports ANSI. At least, not colors... I have a Mercurial wrapper that toggles the color configuration setting so that paged things that are piped to less use "ansi" and unpaged things use "win32" codes, whatever that means, but I imagine it's custom...

conio.h would make the work too. I don't know if any modern compiler still support it though. Free Pascal has CRT units.

Have you considered "emulating" terminal?

Terminal
+ Works over SSH / etc
- Bandwidth issues
- Features are only available per terminal software support
- Portability problems (UNIX color codes on UNIX, Windows/UNIX both support different resolution sizes, as well as line ending encoding)

Emulated:
+ No need for users to have a terminal
+ Simulate any features as needed
+ Faster draw rate
- No actual terminal support, so no cool SSHing

Remember Dwarf Fortress? They moved over to emulated terminal so that people could easily switch out text characters with graphic tilesets.

One thing I've loved that most people never saw: You can edit font glyphs in real time in DOS. So you can actually draw "graphics" in text mode.

All of these are standard 16-color (<- IIRC) text mode from the same game system:

{"name":"maxresdefault.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/a\/fa78507cc38ac3f6b2fadc282ed78f88.jpg","w":1920,"h":1080,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/a\/fa78507cc38ac3f6b2fadc282ed78f88"}

{"name":"320px-And.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/9\/e9e2fbec0f4787576e8ed8441ae20fe5.png","w":320,"h":175,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/9\/e9e2fbec0f4787576e8ed8441ae20fe5"}

{"name":"glade03.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/f\/0f450e5c723857228a8bafd4b07987eb.png","w":592,"h":322,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/f\/0f450e5c723857228a8bafd4b07987eb"}

{"name":"ejet2.gif","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/4\/a4585810b48b3964a7a5cdd6f9614de9.gif","w":640,"h":350,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/4\/a4585810b48b3964a7a5cdd6f9614de9"}

MegaZeux was a spiritual successor to ZZT and basically "ZZT on crack". Some of my first games ever were made in MegaZeux.

I loved working within the constraints of 256 glyphs of ~16x8 bicolor, 16 colors total. You could do "animations" by changing glyphs--either replacing one character with another, or changing the glyph itself. (Like a bitmap version of palette swapping. Changing the glyph changed all characters using it.) You could do bigger characters by combining glyphs together.

People did INSANE stuff with Megazeux like doing actual animated cutscenes by spamming glyph and palette color changes each frame.

Megazeux also supported MODs/S3ms.

This is text mode!

I had never heard of MegaZeux until now. Had it come along at the right time in my life, I would have fallen head over heels for it. S3M support seals the deal.

Thanks for the history lesson.