Windows Terminal Emulator Serial Port Rating: 3,5/5 1037 reviews

PuTTY is a free serial console, terminal emulator and the most popular SSH client. Written in C language and developed by Simon Tatham, PuTTY supports several network protocols such as Telnet, Secure copy protocol (SCP) rlogin, and SSH. It is one of the oldest terminal emulators that are still actively developed and updated. COM Port Data Emulator is a tool for emulating a com port or an Ethernet device that generates a serial stream of data. The program can create a data flow, wrap it to data packets (RS232, TCP/IP, or UDP) and send it to a port. COM Port Data Emulator can help developers or experts test their applications. TerminAll is a user friendly tool for communicating with external devices, using a typical terminal window, where incoming data is shown as lines and users can send data back to the remote device. TerminAll supports TCP and UDP, as well as USB-Serial remote devices. For TCP and UDP TerminAll can run as either client or server. Serial Port Profile (SPP) - The Serial Port Profile is a Bluetooth profile that allows for serial communication between a Bluetooth device and a host/slave device. With this profile enabled, you can connect to a Bluetooth module through a serial terminal. This can be used for configuration purposes or for communication purposes.

This is a list of notable terminal emulators. Most used terminal emulators on Linux and Unix-like systems are GNOME Terminal on GNOME and GTK-based environments, Konsole on KDE, and xfce4-terminal on Xfce as well as xterm.

Character-oriented terminal emulators[edit]

Unix-like[edit]

Command-line interface[edit]

  • Linux console – implements a large subset of the VT102 and ECMA-48/ISO 6429/ANSI X3.64 escape sequences.

The following terminal emulators run inside of other terminals, utilizing libraries such as Curses and Termcap:

  • GNU Screen – Terminal multiplexer with VT100/ANSI terminal emulation
  • Minicom – text-based modem control and terminal emulation program for Unix-like operating systems
  • tmux – Terminal multiplexer with a feature set similar to GNU Screen

Graphical[edit]

X11 and Wayland[edit]

Terminal emulators used in combination with X Window System and Wayland

  • xterm – standard terminal for X11
  • GNOME Terminal – default terminal for GNOME with native Wayland support
  • guake – drop-down terminal for GNOME
  • konsole – default terminal for KDE
  • xfce4-terminal – default terminal for Xfce with drop-down support
  • Terminator – written in Java with many novel or experimental features
  • Terminology[1] – enhanced terminal supportive of multimedia and text manipulation for X11 and Linux framebuffer
  • Tilda – a drop-down terminal
  • Yakuake – (Yet Another Kuake) a drop-down terminal for KDE
  • rxvt – lightweight terminal emulator
  • aterm (from rxvt 2.4.8) created for use with the AfterStep window manager (no longer maintained)
  • Eterm (from rxvt 2.21) created for use with Enlightenment
  • mrxvt (from rxvt 2.7.11) created for multiple tabs and additional features (latest version released in 2008-09-10)
  • urxvt (from rxvt 2.7.11) created to support Unicode, also known as rxvt-unicode
  • Wterm – created for NeXTSTEP style window managers such as Window Maker
macOS[edit]

Terminal emulators used on macOS

  • Terminal – default macOS terminal
  • iTerm2 – open-source terminal specifically for macOS
  • xterm – default terminal when X11.app starts
  • ZTerm – serial line terminal

Apple Classic Mac OS[edit]

Microsoft Windows[edit]

  • ConEmu – local terminal window that can host console application developed either for WinAPI (cmd, powershell, far) or Unix PTY (cygwin, msys, wsl bash)
  • HyperACCESS (commercial) and HyperTerminal (included free with Windows XP and earlier, but not included with Windows Vista and later)
  • mintty – Cygwin terminal
  • Windows Console – Windows command line terminal

Microsoft MS-DOS[edit]

  • Qmodem and Qmodem Pro

IBM OS/2[edit]

  • ZOC – discontinued support for OS/2

Commodore Amiga[edit]

Commodore 64[edit]

Block-oriented terminal emulators[edit]

Emulators for block-oriented terminals, primarily IBM 3270, but also IBM 5250 and other non-IBM terminals.

Coax/Twinax connected[edit]

These terminal emulators are used to replace terminals attached to a host or terminal controller via a coaxial cable (coax) or twinaxial cabling (twinax). They require that the computer on which they run have a hardware adapter to support such an attachment.

  • RUMBA 3270 and 5250

tn3270/tn5250[edit]

These terminal emulators connect to a host using the tn3270 or tn5250 protocols, which run over a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection.

  • x3270 – IBM 3270 emulator for X11 and most Unix-like systems[2]
  • c3270 – IBM 3270 emulator for running inside a vt100/curses emulator for most Unix-like systems[2]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Schroder, Carla (November 16, 2017). '5 Coolest Linux Terminal Emulators'. Linux.com.
  2. ^ ab'x3270'.

External links[edit]

  • The Grumpy Editor's guide to terminal emulators, 2004
  • Comprehensive Linux Terminal Performance Comparison, 2007
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_terminal_emulators&oldid=989782965'
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I hope that this blog post is found and helps someone. I wasn't sure what to title it. Hope Google Juice got you here!

Read this whole post, there's a lot initially but there's really just two or three small pieces. It'll be worth it because you'll be able to have a nice one click menu and drop directly into a serial port terminal on Windows in the Windows Terminal

Often when you're doing embedded systems development you'll want to monitor or talk to the COM/Serial Port just like you SSH into remote system. Folks ask questions like 'How to connect to a serial port as simple as using SSH?'

On Linux you'll use things like 'screen /dev/ttyS0' for COM0. With Windows, however, the historical guidance has always been to use Putty. It'll work but it's somewhat old, quirky, and it doesn't integrate well with the Windows Terminal and a more modern workflow.

Say I have a small embedded microcontroller device that talks over a COM Port (usually via a USB->COM bridge) like an Arduino.

Let's assume this device talks to the COM port as if it were a terminal and it's outputting stuff I want to see. I'll use this great little CLI example app for Arduino from Mads Aasvik to simulate such a device.

Here's what it looks like under Arduino's Serial Monitor, for example. This is a Windows app doing serial communication with its own interface wrapping around it. I want to do this at a command line, and bonus points if it's in Windows Terminal.

Serial Terminal For Windows 10

Setup WSL1

If you have Windows 10 you can the Windows Subsystem for Linux quickly with this command at a Admin prompt:

Then go to the Windows Store and get any small Linux. Ubuntu or Kali will do for our purposes. Run it and set your user and password. (I tried Alpine but it still has issues with screen and /dev/null/utmp)

NOTE: If you are using WSL2 and have set it as default, run wsl --list -v and ensure that your new distro is using WSL1 as only WSL1 will let us talk to the COM Ports. You can change it to WSL1 with 'wsl --set-version DISTRONAME 1' from any command prompt.

To test this out now, run your new distro from any command line prompt like this. Add the 'screen' app with sudo apt update' and 'sudo app install screen'.

Windows Terminal Emulator Serial Port Replicator

You can see here that my Arduino serial device is on COM4. On Linux that device is /dev/ttyS4

That means that I should be able to talk it from any WSL1 Linux Distro on Windows like 'screen /dev/ttyS4 9600' where 9600 is the speed/baud rate.

Get Minicom on your WSL1 distro

Screen is somewhat persnickety for Serial Port work so try Minicom. Minicom is a nice little text com program. Install with apt install minicom and run for the first time with 'sudo minicom -s' to set your default. Note I've change the default port from /dev/modem to /dev/ttyS4 and the speed, in my case, to 9600.

Then I hit enter and save settings as the dft (default) in minicom. You can also turn on Local Echo with 'Ctrl-A E' and toggle it if needed. Now I can talk to my Arudino with minicom.

Ensure dialout permissions to talk to the COM port

NOTE: If you get 'cannon open /dev/ttyS4: Permission denied, you may need to add your user to the dialout group. This way we don't need to sudo and get no prompt when running minicom!

I can now run minicom on my configured COM port 4 (/dev/ttyS4) with wsl -d DISTRONAME minicom without sudo.

Here I'm talking to that Arduino program. This embedded app doesn't need to me hit enter after I type, so remember your own embedded devices will vary.

Windows 10 Serial Terminal Program

Make a nice menu

Bonus points, now I'll add a menu item for Minicom by changing my Windows Terminal settings AND I'll get more points for adding a nice serial port icon!

I hit settings and add a new profile like this at the top under profiles in the 'list.' Again, your distro name will be different.

To review:

  • Use a WSL1 distro
  • Install minicom, run with minicom -s once to make settings
    • Make sure you are using the right /dev/ttyS0 device for your situation
    • Ensure your flow control, baud, etc are all correct in minicom
    • Add your user to the dialout group so you don't have to sudo minicom
  • Make a menu item in Windows Terminal
    • or run minicom manually in your WSL1 instance whenever you like

Serial Emulator Windows 10

Hope this helps!

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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.


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