terminal emulator advice?

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Level 1

9 points

terminal emulator advice?

Coming from linux, I would use minicom to connect to hardware devices via usb->serial->device. What app is recommended for this on a Mac? I did try to install mini-com, but even after the xcode install, still failing the compile so I figure there is a better app to do just that.

Thanks

MacBook Pro 13, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 20, 2010 6:41 AM

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Answer 1

BobHarris

Level 9

56,885 points

May 20, 2010 7:09 AM in response to xlancelalotx

ZTerm perhaps
<http://homepage.mac.com/dalverson/zterm/>

Generally speaking Terminal/Unix oriented questions are best asked in the Mac OS X Technologies > Unix Forum
<http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=735>

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Answer 2

May 20, 2010 7:43 AM in response to xlancelalotx

You might also take a look at http://www.macwise.com/

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Answer 3

xlancelalotx Author

Level 1

9 points

May 20, 2010 9:30 AM in response to BobHarris

Bob thanks I will check out zterm, but it this was not a linux / unix question, it was a Mac software question so "Using Mac OS X 10.6 Snop Leopard" is the correct forum. I simply used it as a 'this is what I used', same way if I said on Windows I used hyperterminal would you have said post it to a windows forum?

Thanks

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Answer 4

xlancelalotx Author

Level 1

9 points

May 20, 2010 9:31 AM in response to MacNoob0909

Thanks, both seem like they will do the job, just amazing there is no basic free emulator. Think I will just do a parallels install of linux and do it that way.

Thanks again to both replies.

Message was edited by: xlancelalotx

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Answer 5

BobHarris

Level 9

56,885 points

May 20, 2010 10:20 AM in response to xlancelalotx

...just amazing there is no basic free emulator.

Macs have not had serial ports for about 10 years. If you needed to connect a serial device, you needed a 3rd party adaptor (and one would assume the adaptor manufacture would provide the needed software to use their device).

Mac OS X does provide a Terminal emulator, but it just emulates a terminal. It does not have code that talks to a serial port.

I guess you could just use various shell scripting tools to talk to the /dev/???? device. I remember back in my Tru64 UNIX days, there was a utility called 'tip' that was used when you wanted to talk to a serial port. I did not find 'tip' on the Mac, nor as part of MacPorts.org.

A Google search for "Mac OS X serial port utility" turned up:
<http://mac.rbytes.net/cat/mac/utilities/osx-serial-port-tool/>
<http://homepage.mac.com/chen/w7ay/Serial%20Tools/index.html>
There may be others.

You could also wonder over to VersionTracker.com and MacUpdates.com, which keep track of Mac OS X software.

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Answer 6

May 20, 2010 10:22 AM in response to xlancelalotx

Hi xlancelalotx;

I think you are being overly sensitive about the suggestion to ask over in the Linux forum. We generally suggest that questions be asked there not only because they are directly involved with Linux but because the users over there might have greater experience in the area where the subject of question, such as in your case terminal emulation.

Allan

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Answer 7

May 20, 2010 10:58 AM in response to xlancelalotx

The Terminal app is a terminal emulator. What you are really asking is how to connect to a serial device. The answer is that you can use your choice of tools. The easiest thing to do out of the box is:


$ screen -r /dev/ttyXXXXXXX

... where the XXXXXXX is some string that identifies the serial adapter in question. If you plug in a USB serial adapter, for example, it ought to pop up under /dev as a new tty.

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