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[on:]

Hi folks,

Every so often a thread comes up asking how to position text on the SerialMonitor in a consistent place to get away from the pages of scrolling text.  The answer is always, "Use VT100/ANSI escapes" and "Use a real terminal emulator instead of SerialMonitor".  I'm still looking into upgrading SerialMonitor into a real terminal emulator, but I'd like to announce a convenient way to use VT100/ANSI escapes.

I've implemented a simple library for controlling ANSI/VT100/VT220 terminals over the serial port.  It delegates reading & writing to a Stream device, so it should be usable with SoftSerial or even I2C, although it has only been used with HardwareSerial so far. It's in a useful state, but there is still more to be done.

It's available at http://github.com/nottwo/BasicTerm

Currently implemented:
* clearing the screen
* positioning the cursor
* setting NORMAL, BOLD, UNDERLINE, BLINK & REVERSE character attributes
* setting foreground & background colors from the standard 8 color palette
* reading arrow & function keys (F1 - F4)

Still in the pipeline:
* expanded function key reading
* blocking reads & reads w/ timeout
* graphical character drawing

Here's an example of a top(1)-like Arduino status monitor sketch: https://github.com/nottwo/BasicTerm/blob/master/examples/StatusMonitor/StatusMonitor.ino

I'm interested in feedback on the library.  Thanks for checking it out &
feel free to let me know what you think!

[Reply #1 on:]

I haven't got time to play with it bit it seems like a good idea, as you say we do get people asking to do this sort of thing.

______
Rob

[Reply #2 on:]

Could be a nice playground article !

[Reply #3 on:]

Could be a nice playground article !

Yes, that's a good idea.  I will write something up.

Just now I found an older library that went part of the way I'm headed with BasicTerm: http://arduino.cc/playground/InterfacingWithSoftware/Xterm

[Reply #4 on:]

Hello,

Thanks for this fine library.

I am writing a emulator for an very old programmable calculator (Olivetti PROGRAMMA 101)
As in and output I need  a VT100 emulator running on a IMAC OS 10.7.
Does someone knows a good VT100 Terminal program (free) for the IMac?

Thanks,

Jan Kromhout
Hellevoetsluis-NL

[Reply #5 on:]

Hoi Jan,

is this something that fit - http://lifehacker.com/5857046/the-best-terminal-emulator-for-mac-os-x -

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