Terminal emulation software

[jruschme]

I'm thinking about using one of my older PowerBooks as a serial terminal to a Sparc. Can anybody recommend a decent free terminal emulation package for the classic MacOS?

The last time I did this was a few years ago and I was using the terminal application in ClarisWorks along with a VT-100 Communications Toolbox component. I assume. though, that something better must be out there.

Thanks...

John

 

[aftermac]

I used to use NCSA Telnet. I'm sure you can find it laying around the Internet somewhere.

 

[jruschme]

I used to use NCSA Telnet. I'm sure you can find it laying around the Internet somewhere.

Which would be fine for telnet. What I'm looking for is a serial terminal with a halfway decent VT100 emulation.

Unfortunately, it seems like all the good ones (e.g., Zterm) are non-free. The closest I could find to free would be something like iTerm under OS X combined with cu or screen to make the actual connection.

 

[aftermac]

LOL, sorry... that's what happens when I half read something... :I

 

[Anonymous Freak]

There are better, but they all cost. In fact, I can't find a single free serial terminal package for the classic Mac OS.

There is Zterm, which is shareware.

Then there is Apple's own MacTerminal, Microphone, and the terminal software built in to the "Works" packages, ClarisWorks and Microsoft Works.

Those are the only ones I can think of. All paid software.

P.S., MacTerminal works great for that task.

 

[Gorgonops]

If OS X is an option "minicom" works well enough. It's a console program rather than GUI but it's relatively user-friendly. (Less hackish than using cu or screen, anyway. It's very reminiscent of Procomm or other similar DOS terminal programs.) You can easily install it with FINK or MacPorts.

(Minicom is the lowest-common-denominator serial terminal program usually included in Linux distributions.)

For classic MacOS... not to endorse piracy or anything, but you're probably not hurting anybody by using "abandonware" at this point.

 

[luddite]

SyncTerm is worth checking out for OS X, but if you're committed to Classic then I guess ZTerm would be the best choice. If you're using it regularly then paying the $20 shareware seems reasonable... or you can just take your time evaluating it ;-)

 

[jruschme]

Having never actually used Zterm before... is the demo time-limited or more of an honor system thing?

John

 

[luddite]

It's fully functional, I believe...

How old is your PB, anyway? The only versions still available from the developer are PPC, so the 68K version may well be free/abandonware by now.

 

[glf]

I recommend ProTerm. It was one of the best terminal programs for the Mac, and in many was the Apple II- and was script-able. The only thing I ever needed it from that it couldn't support was RipTerm. To this day, I've never really found a usable Rip client for the Mac...

http://ftp.logitheque.telechargement.fr/p/ProTERM.newest.sea.bin

 

[msieweke]

Red Ryder used to be a very popular shareware terminal package. I still have a floppy around here with v5.0. It's primitive (non-scrolling window), but it runs somewhat on my PB520 with System 7.0.2. It locks up the system when you quit.

There's an old kermit for the Mac. I have 0.9(40) on a floppy here.

 

[CJ_Miller]

Zterm or Proterm, I would say.

 

[Dog Cow]

Here's some links to terminal emulators mentioned in this topic:

White Knight

Red Ryder

ProTerm

Zterm

 

[rieSha.]

I'd recommend Terminal 2.2. OpenSource, small, quite fast, scriptable, including ZModem:

http://www.knubbelmac.de/software/internet-programme/telnet-ssh-terminal.html#terminal-2.2