UART (RS232/com port) development tool

Although the UART/RS232/com-port is already of age (early 1960’s), it is still used nowadays in embedded systems for debug, servicing, etc. Also the GECKO5Education and GECKO5Modular provide such an interface.

To be able to communicate over this interface you require a terminal program on your computer. This section list some possible terminal programs that you can use on the different operating systems.

linux

A good terminal program for linux is cutecom. On the official website you can download the sources; however, most linux distributions already have cutecom packaged. Under Ubuntu 24.04 LTS it can be installed with:

sudo apt install cutecom

macOS

A good terminal program for macOS is CoolTerm. On the official website you can download the latest version.

Windows WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

Under windows WSL you can either use cutecom (see linux above), or you use Bray++ as described below (so outside of WSL).

Windows native

A good terminal program for Windows native is Bray++. It can be downloaded on the official website. If you do not arrive to download it on the official website, an alternative download site is here. Note that the terminal program cutecom for linux is based on Bray++.

UART-settings

In the courses *CS-473: System programming for Systems-on-chip and CS-476: Embedded System Design at EPFL we use the UART with following parameters:

  • Baud rate: 115200

  • Data Bits: 8

  • Flow Control: None

  • Parity: None

  • Stop Bits: 1