The Unix command-line composition-via-pipes workflow has no particular connection to hardware capabilities whatsoever.

   foo | bar | baz

It is true that the unix pipe model is explicitly designed around text as the data format, and it is true that there's lot of data on computers in 2026 that is not sensibly represented as text. But there's also lots that is, and so the pipe model continues to be valuable and powerful.

There is an interesting parallel between 'foo | bar | baz' and 'baz(bar(foo()))'. They all transform and are composable.