Best RS232 terminal?

[maginnovision]

I typically write my own programs.

Judging by the number of entries proposed in this thread, that's what everybody else seems to be doing. 

I am truly surprised by the number of different terminal programs still in active use, and most of them still (more or less) actively maintained.

Well I have written a general purpose terminal program(back when I wrote PBX management software), but I typically do more specific programs now. There are a LOT of terminal programs though, if you trawled through github I bet you could find a lot more. At this point you can download a bunch of them, try them out, and keep what you like.

[VK3DRB]

Teraterm is good and I have been using it for 20 years, but it seriously lacks one thing... it does not display serial data in hexadecimal and does not display non-printable characters. Except for ASCII printable characters, it is pretty useless for low level debugging.

There are better programs around. I like Bray's Terminal. I think it is better than Termite, and much better than Teraterm for RS-232 serial work. You can program some macros in and name the macro buttons. But most of all it is easy to use and you can see the non-printable hex characters as well.

https://sites.google.com/site/terminalbpp/

[digsys]

I had the same problem back in '88, and ended up creating my own Trace.exe
We only had DOS back then, so no fancy interface, but many features, not even found today - they may / may not be useful. eg Time stamping Rxd-Txd to uS, breaking into a serial line and setting up "packet watch" and or "auto replace" strings etc etc
I'll attach the program, it may be of use. Detailed functions are described in the Trace.TXT file. Ignore license / pricing stuff, it paid for itself many times over :-) I still have the dev system (not used it in near 20yrs, but could change things if needed). Actually, I still use the program occasionally.

[olkipukki]

I'm using SecureCRT as all-around remote connectivity client

https://www.vandyke.com/products/index.html

[ebastler]

Teraterm is good and I have been using it for 20 years, but it seriously lacks one thing... it does not display serial data in hexadecimal and does not display non-printable characters. Except for ASCII printable characters, it is pretty useless for low level debugging.

Press Shift-ESC (repeatedly if needed) to toggle TeraTerm between regular mode, debug display, hex display, and entirely muted display.

[PKTKS]

Compiled alpha-sorted

• Coolterm      https://freeware.the-meiers.org/
• Cutecom      http://cutecom.sourceforge.net/
• GTKterm      https://github.com/Jeija/gtkterm
• HTerm         http://www.der-hammer.info/pages/terminal.html
• HypertermA      http://www.hilgraeve.com/htpe/download.html
• HypertermB      http://www.hyperserialport.com/
• Minicom      https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom
• MobaXterm      https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/
• PuttyA         https://www.putty.org/
• PuttyB         https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html
• Realterm      https://realterm.sourceforge.io/
• SecureCRT      https://www.vandyke.com/products/index.html
• SerialPlot      https://hackaday.io/project/5334-serialplot-realtime-plotting-software
• SerialPortMon   https://helmpcb.com/software/serial-port-monitor
• TelixA         https://archive.org/details/TelixCommunications_1020
• TelixB         https://vetusware.com/download/Telix%20Communications%203.22/?id=3319
• TelixC         https://vetusware.com/download/Telix%204.25/?id=43
• Terminate      https://vetusware.com/manufacturer/SerWiz%20Comm/?author=5828
• TeraTermA      https://ttssh2.osdn.jp/
• TeraTermB      http://www.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html
• Terminal      https://sites.google.com/site/terminalbpp/
• Termite      https://www.compuphase.com/software_termite.htm
• YAT         https://sourceforge.net/projects/y-a-terminal/

Paul

[nctnico]

Great list! It should become a sticky somewhere!

SecureCRT looks very promising to me.

[Thelanie]

Wow im astounded by all the replies, thanks for sharing your ideas/experience with me, i will deffinitely check out some of the programs you have suggested, Putty i already use for my Raspberry pi and such but it is not the solution we are looking for work, but i will try the other programs suggested, thanks a lot! 

[David Hess]

I still use Telix either under DOS or as a virtualized DOS program.

[jesuscf]

PuTTY.  I like starting it from the command prompt or using a batch file, for example:

D:\>putty -serial COM3 -sercfg 115200,8,n,1,N -v

To check what ports are available from the command prompt:

D:\>reg query HKLM\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\SERIALCOMM

[HwAoRrDk]

Also worth mentioning ExtraPuTTY. It's a fork of PuTTY that adds a bunch of extra features.

http://www.extraputty.com/

Although, it does lag behind the main PuTTY code in terms of updates, so I would be hesitant to use it in any security-conscious scenario (e.g. remote SSH).

[GlennSprigg]

I typically write my own programs.

Judging by the number of entries proposed in this thread, that's what everybody else seems to be doing. 

I am truly surprised by the number of different terminal programs still in active use, and most of them still (more or less) actively maintained.

They are 'Actively Maintained' because there is a proliferous amount of 'old' hardware that still
requires this/such 'old' interfaces, that literally still dominate the real world market!!!
New technology is one thing, but the VAST amount of 'old' technology hardware still in use now,
and for many years to come, means it will never die out any time soon!!
I'm sure that over 80% of people here, have 'never' used an old 'RS232' interface. (Old PC's/Laptops).
All they know are USB converters, if anything. That isn't to put them down!!
While the EQUIPMENT is still there, one needs to know how to talk to it. An old $20 laptop will do it!!

[Cerebus]

Best RS232 terminal?



VT100 of course!

I'll get my coat...

[digsys]

.... While the EQUIPMENT is still there, one needs to know how to talk to it. An old $20 laptop will do it!!

PPPFFTTT $20 ... You younguns with your fancy equipment ! ooooo look at me, I can carry my 'puter with me .. I dun't need the ute ... :-)

[ferdieCX]

Best RS232 terminal?



VT100 of course!

I'll get my coat...

A VT100 connected to a host running RT-11, so many memories   

[Gyro]

Ah, happy days! 

The VT52 was nice too. It had that cute little solenoid under the keyboard plate to give mechanical feedback on the keys (teletype style). 

... but yes, the VT100 still seems like an old friend and a design classic.

[nctnico]

Great list! It should become a sticky somewhere!

SecureCRT looks very promising to me.

I finally got time to try it but it appears the makers made te mistake to build it for very specific Linux versions. They should have included the libraries the software relies on with the binaries so it will run on any Linux distribution. Looks like Hyperterminal survives for another round...