Configuring OS X Serial terminal emulation using Terminal and Screen

If you use Mac OS X on a daily basis like I do, you may or may not be aware that there is no included Serial terminal emulation software included with the Operating System. For most people this would not be of any concern, I mean how many people actually use HyperTerminal right? But for those of us who configure Serial based devices like Cisco Routers, Switches, and Load Balancers, on a regular basis I was having trouble finding a good solution.

There are no good free Serial terminal applications out there, there are some that will work, but they're not pretty, not Universal Binaries, or they cost money. Me personally I don't think I should have to pay for software like that, you can't make an application like that so nice and so feature packed that anyone should ever have to pay for a simple Serial Terminal app, that's like charging money for screen savers... Of all the ways to make a quick buck.

So my solution to the issue was a simple one, I wish I had thought of it much sooner and spared my life from Minicom. What I did was configure the built in OS X Terminal application to fire off the Screen program inside itself automatically, and boom instant Serial Terminal.

It goes a little something like this...

• Open the Finder -> Applications -> Utilities, and click on Terminal.

• Now click the Terminal menu -> Preferences -> Settings tab, and create a Settings/Profile entry either by using the + or Duplicating your existing one.

• With your new profile selected on the right side click on the Shell tab and Check "Run command:" and enter "screen /dev/tty.COM_PORT_HERE", where the com port is your USB to Serial converter or in my case SocketCom Bluetooth to Serial adapter.

• That's all there is to it, now you can go up to the Terminal menu and click on Shell -> New Window -> Your Profile, or Shell -> New Tab -> Your Profile.

Also for those of you who didn't know you can use Terminal for SCP and SSH, check out New Remote Connection on the Shell menu.

So now that I've shown you how to do it, here's a copy of my Terminal Profile that you can just import it instead. =)

Serial.terminal

~Matt