1 2picocom 3 4by Nick Patavalis (npat@efault.net) 5 6As its name suggests, [picocom] is a minimal dumb-terminal emulation 7program. It is, in principle, very much like minicom, only it's "pico" 8instead of "mini"! It was designed to serve as a simple, manual, modem 9configuration, testing, and debugging tool. It has also served (quite 10well) as a low-tech "terminal-window" to allow operator intervention 11in PPP connection scripts (something like the ms-windows "open 12terminal window before / after dialing" feature). It could also prove 13useful in many other similar tasks. It is ideal for embedded systems 14since its memory footprint is minimal (less than 20K, when 15stripped). Apart from being a handy little tool, [picocom] source 16distribution includes a simple, easy to use, and thoroughly documented 17terminal-management library, which could serve other projects as 18well. This library hides the termios(3) calls, and provides a less 19complex and safer (though certainly less feature-rich) 20interface. [picocom] runs on Linux, and with minor modifications it 21could run on any Unix system with the termios(3) library. 22 23For a description of picocom's operation, its command line options, 24and usage examples, see the manual page included in the source 25distribution as "picocom.8", and also html-ized as "picocom.8.html". 26 27People who have contibuted to picocom, by offering feature 28implementations, bug-fixes, corrections, and suggestions are listed in 29the "CONTRIBUTORS" file. 30 31The latest version of "picocom" can be downloaded from: 32 33 http://efault.net/npat/hacks/picocom/ 34 35Please feel free to send comments, requests for new features (no 36promisses, though!), bug-fixes and rants, to the author's email 37address shown at the top of this file. 38