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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Serial terminal woes
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| Lee3 Regular Member  Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
Sorry if this is in the wrong place - it is related to me trying to get a micromite working.... I'm using Mac OSX, and a terminal emulator called 'Serial' - which seems to work nicely, recognises my Chinese USB-serial adaptor, connects to the micromite ok, but when I try and use the editor, I can't send any F-key commands successfully. Something is amiss, in that the micromite interprets, say F2 as [Esc] then OQ.... So when I press F2 to save/run, I get the dialog to exit without saving, and 'OQ' prefilled as my response.... I'm not even sure at which point the problem is - software/adaptor or chip, I suspect software.... Any ideas, especially from anyone using mac OSX and micromite. I liked the sound of this program, as it has built in drivers, but am not completely adverse to trying something else (or even picking up an old PC laptop if I have to!).... Cheers Lee |
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bigmik Guru  Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2946 |
Hi Lee, Welcome to TBS Forum.. I don't have a MAC myself but a search on GOOGLE mentions this is common on MACS as the function keys do OS. Functions.. Try doing Fn F1 etc Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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| Lee3 Regular Member Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
Yes - the function keys generally are used for screen brightness/etc - but this problem is when I properly press Fn-F1 etc I've also just recreated the same behaviour with two other terminal emulators, including the OS native one.... Bugger! Lee |
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Geoffg Guru Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3272 |
You can also use control keys to avoid this problem. For example CTRL-Q has the same effect as F1 - see page 24 of the manual. Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net |
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| Lee3 Regular Member Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
Thank-you Geoff! That works great - I can now go to bed happy having made that blinking little LED blink. I was so close to stumbling onto that myself too - I'd actually looked up the EDIT command in the manual, but just hadn't turned the page once more.... Thanks again, Lee |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9502 |
I know you seem to have this one sorted out, but reading the thread, seems like your MAC terminal program is not 100% VT100 compatible. I did see errors very similar to this, when I used a PC terminal program from the days of DOS, which was not VT100 compatible(it was just a WYSIWYG terminal), so it did not act on the control codes, it just showed parts of them on the screen, making the screen look very odd!  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Lee3 Regular Member Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
I did think that - but then reproduced the exact behaviour across 3 different terminal progs? I wonder if it is a hardware issue? Or system keyboard mapping issue? In any case, not something I understand well! I'm glad there is an alternative to the F-keys, or I would have been in the market for a little PC! On that score - my Mac laptop is pretty large, and is a bit bulky for my (small) electronics bench by the time I have a breadboard and wires running everywhere.... Does anyone have any suggestions for a very small PC laptop I could pick up, really mainly to run a terminal emulator, and probably a PicKit3 when I get around to getting one.... Having used Macs for 17 years, I don't know much when it comes to hardware specs etc Even second hand models that would be useful?? |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2405 |
i use a netbook for everything these days, which works quite well. mine is an eMachines EM350, an older model that can now be picked up very cheaply. truth be known, i actually have two (one running win XP, the other running linux mint). these machines are not massively powerful, but just fine for most day-to-day tasks. i'd not get one running win 7 or later. XP is about the sensible limit. most netbooks take 2gb of ram fine (usually the maximum), which is a useful upgrade, and my XP machine has an extended 9-cell battery from china (via ebay) that lets it run for 7 or so hours between charges. the screen is 10.1", 1024x600. rob :-) |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9502 |
How about a dinky wee Eee PC? I have used these very successfully in the field for programming purposes. Probably not the best for development, due to the small size, but they are great just for updating code in the field. I used mine mainly for PICAXE program updates, but there would be nothing stopping one of these running something like TeraTerm for MicroMite use... The ones I used(and still have!) were 2G and 4G ones(2GB and 4GB embedded SSD). Not a huge amount of room, but still enough for a copy of XP and TeraTerm. Although XP is not designed to run on an SSD, it does still run OK on these machines, but XP will wear out the SSD quicker then a modern OS, but if you can get the machine cheap enough, that does not really matter. You can also install a Linux. The Eee PC normally came with a version of Linux anyway, but you'd just have to find a VT100 compatible terminal program for it - probably a better idea then XP anyway. Not sure if TeraTerm comes as a Linux port or not, but I dear say there must be other Linux VT100 terminal softwares to be had with a bit of a search around the net.
They can be had quite cheaply on eBay. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
> but I dear say there must be other Linux VT100 terminal > softwares to be had with a bit of a search around the net. Minicom works good even for the Linux challenged ( me ) . |
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TassyJim Guru Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6224 |
TeraTerm is Windows only unfortunately. TeraTerm works under Wine and with ser2net to give you a TCPIP connection to the 'mite, TeraTerm seems better using the TCPIP rather than direct serial. My preferred Linux terminal program is Putty - also available for Windows. Jim VK7JH MMedit |
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| ajkw Senior Member  Joined: 29/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 290 |
Putty is the only program I have found so far on Ubuntu that handles the Fn keys. I thought I had tried Minicom, perhaps I should again per hitsware. My MacBook does not. |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4004 |
Have you tried screen? It is commonly used along these lines: screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 (use a slower baud rate for umite!) I would expect any reasonable pass-through command to work but of course you'd need to be using a VT100-capable window/shell (because the command just passes the ESC sequence through). John |
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| Lee3 Regular Member Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
Yes - identical problem found with screen and also with MacWise.... Lee |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4004 |
There you are, your problem is with the terminal not the pass-through ("terminal emulator") command, then. Check termcap/termio (or whatever it's called now if not one of those) settings. John |
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| Lee3 Regular Member Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
I suppose having VT100/serial support isn't high on Apples priorities these days! In any case Geoff pointed me in the right direction with the ctrl code alternatives.... I can live without the Fn keys now.... :) |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4004 |
If they have the usual UNIX-derived termcap/termio then it's up to you (not Apple) to set the kind of device you want (vt100 in this case). For Linux, it's a standard feature but not necessarily the default setting as it's trivial to change per user and per terminal window. (As with UNIX.) I can't see why Apple would remove a long-time standard feature, though with Apple... who knows. Is there no documentation or help system? UNIX & Linux have lots, readily available. This stuff goes right back to whenever terminals (glass teletypes!) started having cursor-addressing and the like, well before the VT100 first appeared. Roughly 30 years, might be 35. I hope even Apple left it in!! John |
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| ajkw Senior Member Joined: 29/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 290 |
Whilst I too have been using the control keys instead of the function keys happily enough it has bugged me for a while, why don't the function keys work?? Simular to Lee when pressing the function keys you get "OP" "OR" as a response. It seems many terminal programs send ESC[OP for F1 when the Micromite likes ESC[11~ F1 ESC[11~ or \033[11~ F2 ESC[12~ F3 ESC[13~ F4 ESC[14~ In my Mac terminal program I was able to change to these and now the function keys work as expected. Next stop the Linux box. Anthony. |
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| Lee3 Regular Member Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
Anthony - thanks, very handy info.... I had a look - it seems an easy process to adjust F-key codes in MacWise, I'll probably keep using Serial.app though with control codes, am going to save your post though.... :) |
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