Active19 days ago
What programs can act as a terminal and access serial ports?
IOGEAR Bluetooth Serial Adapter Configuration Tool for Mac relates to System Tools. This application is a Bluetooth serial adapter test tool. The Bluetooth device transmits and receives data up to 330 ft (100 m) when connected to another Bluetooth device, and eliminates the need for cables and additional software apps. Nov 16, 2006 You could purchase a KeySpan usb to serial adapter which comes with a driver which creates an entry in /dev. Then, for example, perl scripts can receive data from serial devices. Mac Pro 2.66Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8) Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz. Using Terminal to connect to serial port More Less. Apple Footer. USB to DB9 RS232 for Serial Communication. Synchronize your PDA, Digital Camera, Cell Phone or other device currently using a serial port with this USB RS-232 Serial Adapter. I bought the keyspan serial adapter and it had a CD with MAC drivers. Installed it, plugged in the keyspan to a switch and fired up Zterm. Zterm gave me a drop down of options on how to connect. Arduino Serial Monitor (Windows, Mac, Linux) The Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is the software side of the Arduino platform.And, because using a terminal is such a big part of working with Arduinos and other microcontrollers, they decided to included a serial terminal with the software.
This is not for terminal access on an IP connection, this is so I can access a hardware device plugged into a USB/serial converter running at 9600/8/N/1.
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13 Answers
There's a new Mac app called Serial, available in the app store. Full disclosure- I wrote it. The main advantage over other apps is it can work with most USB to serial devices without having to install any drivers, as it has its own drivers built-in. It also does full terminal emulation so you can use it to work with Linux or other devices that require it. You can try it for free, too.
Also, Apple began including their own driver for FTDI-based devices in Mavericks (10.9). So, if you're on 10.9 or later and your device has an FTDI chip inside, you can use the built-in screen command in the terminal to access your device without worrying about drivers. https://everbluesky667.weebly.com/blog/free-screen-grab-tool-for-mac.
Chris KChris K
You can use the terminal command
screen
to do this!!!Lost tool bar on excel for mac. As seen on ServerFault:
I love using [screen] for connecting to serial consoles, i.e.
Mac Serial No
Or, if you prefer Mac OS X hints.. Core generator software tool for mac license codes.
I often have to do router configuration via a console port, so I use a Keyspan Serial Adapter to get access. Two problems then present themselves: ZTerm is a horrible Mac OS X app. It hasn't been updated in five years or so, and isn't a Universal Binary. The developer doesn't seem in any hurry to rectify the situation. It is not worth the shareware fee in its current form. Minicom requires installation of Fink or MacPorts and is overly complex. Solution: Use screen, Terminal, and a little AppleScripting.
First, launch Script Editor and type/paste in the following code:
Compile and save as an app from within Script Editor, and you have a double-clickable application to launch a serial Terminal session. You may want to customize this slightly -- you can change the screen colors or number of columns or rows. You may also need to customize the screen command with a different device name if you are using something other than the Keyspan Serial Adapter (do an ls tty* of the /dev/ directory to get the right name).
screen uses Control-A to take commands directed to it. So type Control-A followed by Control- to exit your screen session. If you fail to do this and exit a Terminal session, you'll leave the screen session alive and the serial resource unavailable until you kill the screen session manually. man screen will show you further commands to send to a screen session.
If anyone can reply with a link to a tutorial on how to wrap an interactive Unix App in Cocoa, that would be the next step -- it would be nice to do this without involving Terminal. If you prefer to use Minicom, you could still use the AppleScript to wrap it into a nice launchable app -- use this older hint to find the right command line commands.
Many USB-Serial adapters use the chip from FTDI. Install the 'Virtual COM Port' driver and look for the proper TTY name in
/dev
. For example, on a PowerBook G4 it came up as /dev/tty.usbserial-FTALKY8I
.Community♦
JoshJosh5,1651111 gold badges3232 silver badges5656 bronze badges
The best program I know of for this is
minicom
, available from Homebrew, fink, and macports.Minicom is a serial communication program. It is a Unix clone of the well-known MS-DOS Telix program. It has ANSI color, a dialing directory, dial-a-list, and a scripting language.
nohillside♦57.1k1414 gold badges120120 silver badges168168 bronze badges
user588
My preference is
cu
. I use it for Arduino or Bus Pirate related fun. It's installed by default and supports parity settings among other options (type man cu
for more info).To bail out when you're done, type
~.
as you would with SSHRandomInsanoRandomInsano
If you prefer not to work in Terminal, you might mant to try CoolTerm (free). Scroll down a bit for description and download. Don’t let the fact it‘s written in RealBasic turn you away.. I have used it to connect to plotters, Arduino boards and receipt printers via a Keyspan USB<->Serial Adaptor.
myhdmyhd2,51655 gold badges2424 silver badges5656 bronze badges
You should have a look at ZOC, what I think to be the best terminal emulation program available for the Mac. I use it everyday for my job. It has the ability to do direct communication with a serial port. Of course it does way more than just serial communication.
ZOC is a professional SSH/telnet client and terminal emulator. With its impressive list of emulations it lets you easily connect to hosts and mainframes, using communication methods like secure shell, telnet, serial cable or modem/isdn.
Its sleek user interface has many ways of making your life easier. In its own way, this is the swiss army knife of thin clients: versatile, robust, proven.
Key features:
- Tabbed sessions with thumbnails
- Customizable to meet your preferences and needs
- Scripting and automation features
- Compatible with Windows 7 and OS X Lion
- Administrator friendly (deployment, configuration)
- Now $79.99 with attractive bulk discounts
nohillside♦- Tabbed sessions with thumbnails
- Customizable to meet your preferences and needs
- Scripting and automation features
- Compatible with Windows 7 and OS X Lion
- Administrator friendly (deployment, configuration)
- Now $79.99 with attractive bulk discounts
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CarterCarter
C-Kermit is alive and well in Brew, and can be installed with:
Naturally you would require Brew to be installed first. You can find information on how to do this here: http://brew.sh
Alternatively use Macports
This would too require you to have Macports installed
Danijel-James W4,03855 gold badges2525 silver badges5252 bronze badges
ZachZach
Serial Port Connectors
And then there still is the old ZTerm which is just as old as it's looks suggest yet it gets the job done just fine and it is available for free. Works fine with Prolific (PL 2303) and FTDI based USB serial adapters.
MacLemonMacLemon
![Connector tool for commscope Connector tool for commscope](/uploads/1/3/3/8/133821457/942000710.png)
I have had success with cutecom on Ubuntu 16.04
Supported on OSX: http://cutecom.sourceforge.net/
gatorbackgatorback59622 gold badges77 silver badges2222 bronze badges
Another serial terminal for Mac OS X is Cornflake!
It features Device Selection with a Refresh Button, Baud Rate & Packet Type & Flow Control Selection, Port Control and a View Filter to view incoming data as ASCII, ASCII+, Integer or HEX.
maccidmaccid
After trying other approaches (incl.
screen
) unsuccessfully, I started using goSerial from this list of serial port apps for mac. Seems to be working fine. It's a free (donation based) program.Itool For Mac
Javad SadeqzadehJavad Sadeqzadeh
I use
screen
to connect to my router's serial port on my Mac.After installing it- using either macports or homebrew depending on your preference- use the following syntax:
To connect to my MikroTik RB4011 router my
screen
command is:'cs8' being the bit rate of router and 'ixoff' specifying 'No Flow Control'. '115200' is the baud rate of router. Alternate settings would be 'cs7' for 7 instead of 8 bit and 'ixon' if flow control supported by your serial device.
man screen
All the 'HowTo's' for using
screen
to make a serial connection on the 'net I've found Googling omit these required parameters, so that's why you'll find screen
has not worked if you've tried it just passing only the baud rate.![Tool Tool](https://domar.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1200x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/t/mtcs33n-1.jpg)
BTW,
minicom -s
(which would also need to be installed via macports or homebrew) also works great, but I prefer screen as I don't have to go through setup menus- I can just pass the serial connection parameters directly to the screen command.F1LinuxF1Linux
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Trieu Tu LongTrieu Tu Long
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protected by nohillside♦Jun 17 '18 at 6:33
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