Dumb Terminal

Dave Hein

Has anybody ever built a dumb terminal around the Prop? I'm envisioning a small box that has connectors for VGA, PS2, serial and power. It should have at least an 80x24 text display, and 100x40 would be nice. I've seen various VGA drivers that provide text resolutions like that by using multiple cogs. It would be nice if it implemented the PST special characters, and an ANSI terminal mode would be good also. Does such a thing exist?

Mike Cook

Found this: http://www.shaels.net/index.php/propterm

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/111770-PropTerm-ANSI-Terminal-project?highlight=propterm

LoopyByteloose

I am using Jeff Ledger (oddbitcollector)'s solution.

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/127733-New-Tutorial-Propeller-Serial-Terminal

I had tried the PocketTerm, which is nicer and more feature rich. But I had problems because I wanted to disconnect the USB port and just use it stand alone. The USB port would cycle a reset mode. This may be fixed now, but I haven't had time to go back to it. I did report the bug to them a long-time ago.. maybe a year. You can buy their board or just use the code for free and build a Propeller Project board with RS422 or RS-232 interface.

ANSI mode is definitely possible. I might go back and tweak PocketTerm to be exactly the way I want it.. without the active USB port. It really is nicer.. adjustable baud, etc.

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/127733-New-Tutorial-Propeller-Serial-Terminal

Dave Hein

The PocketTerm looks interesting. It might be worth investing in one. The PropTerm also looks good.

Invent-O-Doc

Vince Briel's PockeTerm is pretty nice - and the code is posted online somewhere.

LoopyByteloose

Googe for 'Briel Computiers' to find his website. Or just go here... http://www.brielcomputers.com/

While the Propeller 1 supports a full ANSI terminal, I am hoping one day that the Propeller 2 will allow for a UTF-8 Unicode solution to actually display traditional Chinese. Those 7000 charactes need a bit more capacity than the Propeller 1 provides.

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

Here's the "terminal" resources I know of:

• Pocket Term: http://www.brielcomputers.com/files/PTfirmware.zip
• Coggyterm/PropCOMM: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/108928-CoggyTerm-2.0d-Terminal-w-VT100-emulation
• Serial Bluetooth Helper: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mm5b663t5u9w7k6/Bluetooth_Helper.zip

Dave Hein

Thanks to everyone for their responses. I'll have to try out the code when I have a chance.

Dr_Acula

The PocketTerm is how I got into the propeller. Great little board.

Looking back, when I first used this I really didn't understand the propeller much, so it was a matter of buying the board, downloading the software and running it. But with experience it is possible to see the propeller in a different light, and to look at the obex as a library of building blocks. For example, the standard pocketterm software was VGA text with one color scheme per line. There are different VGA drivers out there that can do different colors per character. Or you could change it to a pixel based graphics driver.

A dumb terminal is a great place to start - keyboard to serial, and then serial to display. VT100 is a good protocol and other objects have added more VT100 commands. OBC has done a lot of interesting work on this.

The concept of a dumb terminal can be taken further, eg Serial to SD card, and the propeller handles all the low level SD driver code.

LoopyByteloose

The Serial Bluetooth Helper is a bit of a surprise.

I got into Bluetooth rather early and then it had security problems with cellular telephones. I have stayed away ever since.

Now it seem to have revived itself and can even provide a wireless terminal to a distant Propeller board via Bluetooth.

~~~~~~~~
For those that can't stand wires, this seems a good solution for remote Propellers and Parallax is selling a Bluetooth interface for Propellers.

http://hackaday.com/2012/05/03/controlling-a-propeller-wirelessly-with-bluetooth/

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

Thanks Loopy!

Here's a much more recent help guide to go with that Serial Bluetooth Helper app.

http://propellerpowered.com/shop/?page_id=1748

Jeff