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dterm: A simple terminal program

dterm is a simple terminal emulator, which doesn't actually emulate any particular terminal. Mainly, it is designed for use with xterm and friends, which already do a perfectly good emulation, and therefore don't need any special help; dterm simply provides a means by which keystrokes are forwarded to the serial line, and data forwarded from the serial line appears on the terminal.

Running dterm

dterm is invoked thusly: 

	dterm [options|device ...]

dterm attempts to read the file ~/.dtermrc for options; if this doesn't exist, it tries /etc/dtermrc. Then it parses the options passed on the command line.

The options read should include a device name, e.g "ttyS0" or "ttyd0" for the first serial port on a Linux or FreeBSD system respectively.

Once started, dterm can be got into command mode using Ctrl/]. Press enter once from command mode to get back into conversational mode. (The command character can be changed with the esc= option, e.g. esc=p to use Ctrl/P instead of Ctrl/].)

Options

The following options can be used from command mode

  • 300, 1200, 9600 etc: Set speed, default 9600.
  • 5, 6, 7, 8: Set bits per character, default 8.
  • 1, 2: Set number of stop bits, default 1.
  • e, o, n, m, s: Set parity to even, odd, none, mark or space, default none.
  • cts, nocts: Enable / disable CTS flow control, default nocts.
  • xon, noxon: Enable / disable XON/XOFF flow control, default noxon.
  • modem: Enable / disable modem control (hang up modem on exit, exit if modem hangs up), default nomodem.
  • bs, nobs: Enable / disable mapping of Delete to Backspace, default nobs.
  • del, nodel: Enable / disable mapping of Backspace to Delete, default nodel.
  • maplf, nomaplf: Enable / disable mapping of LF to CR, default nomaplf.
  • igncr, noigncr: Ignore / output carriage returns, default noigncr.
  • crlf, nocrlf: Enable / disable sending LF after each CR, default nocrlf.
  • b: Send a 500 ms break.
  • dtr, nodtr: Raise / lower DTR, default dtr.
  • rts, norts: Raise / lower RTS, default rts.
  • d, r: Toggle DTR / RTS.
  • esc=<c>: Set command mode character to Ctrl/<c> (default ']')
  • @<filename>: Read and process configuration from <filename>.
  • !<command>: Execute shell command
  • show: Display current configuration and modem status.
  • help, h, ?: Display a summary of commands.
  • version: Display version, copyright and warranty information.
  • quit, q: Exit

Examples

Connect via ttyS1 to a system running at 2400 bps, 7 bits even parity: 

	dterm ttyS1 2400 7 e

Send a break in a running session: 

	^]
	dterm> b
	dterm>

Copyright

dterm is Copyright 2007 Knossos Networks Ltd.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public License version 2 is available at http://www.knossos.net.nz/gpl.html or can be obtained from the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

Source Code

dterm source code is located at http://www.knossos.net.nz/downloads/dterm-0.1.tgz