I have:
- Windows 7
- CygWin
- A development board connected to COM1 port.
I need:
- Connect to its serial port from CygWin.
If I used Linux I would run a program like picocom or minicom. Also in Windows 7 I could install HyperTerminal and open COM1 port or use Putty for that. But I would like to do it from CygWin's mintty because I like its fonts and some other small joys. It seems mintty itself is not able to work with serial ports, so I wonder if there is a program like picocom or minicom in CygWin's repository.
Best Answer
Having done some research on terminal emulators today, I feel the need to hail the virtues of
xterm
. This FAQ documents a lot of the bugs in other terminal emulators which aim to bexterm
or VT-100 compatible. You can also usevttest
to reveal a lot these issues for yourself. What puts a lot of people off ofxterm
though is the lack of a menu configuration. This leads a lot of people to thinkxterm
is not configurable at all, however it is in fact highly configurable, it just has to be done via files like.Xresources
or command line options.More gripes include lack of clipboard support and so lack of copy/paste with
Ctrl-Shift-C
/Ctrl-Shift-V
by default, however this can be overcome. Another is the lack of tabs, however many advanced Linux users prefer to usetmux
or GNUscreen
which provide equivalent features.This leads me to the real answer to your question -
screen
can be used to connect to serial port and should work on Cygwin despite/dev/ttySX
not showing up withls
. With this you should be able to use any terminal emulator you like, be itxterm
ormintty
.xterm
lacks many modern features and so may not be for everyone, but it is work noting that it is difficult to match what happens under the hood.In case the link dies, here is the syntax for using screen as a serial terminal: