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Use an old serial VT100 terminal with OS X
Authored by: Hugh Hood on Oct 24, '10 05:37:47PM
Wesley,

I realize it's been a couple of years since your comment, but ...

I suspect, but have yet to confirm, that the serial terminal support described in this hint can be re-enabled in Leopard and beyond by adding back the required entries in the /etc/gettytab and /etc/ttys files.

You may want to reference footnote #s 8 and 10 in the article I wrote for A2Central.com on Apple II to Mac Intelligent Serial Terminal File Transfers. The article is here [link: OS X Serial Terminal] and includes more information than you probably care to learn, but it details the specific entry in the gettytab file to get everything working, as well as adding a few bonuses not covered in the original hint, including transparent zmodem transfers and 57,600 baud operation. I've since moved up to 115,200 baud, and that's with an Apple II as the terminal.

When I had access to a friend's Leopard Mac to examine the ttys and gettytab files with a text editor, I found the gettytab file table had been gutted and it seemed like the ttys file was a little 'skinnier' too. My friend had no interest in serial terminal support so I didn't get to experiment -- can't say I blame him.

It would be nice if someone could see if my suspicion was correct.

Hugh



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Use an old serial VT100 terminal with OS X
Authored by: Hugh Hood on Jul 10, '11 11:10:32AM
Good News --

Thanks to the efforts of a guy posting on the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club web site, it appears that the mystery of how to enable the type of serial terminal support described in this hint post Tiger (OS X 10.4+) has been solved.

Rather than modifying the '/etc/ttys' file to start and run getty for the desired serial device, you simply construct a short Property List file (.plist) that starts the getty. This file is then placed in the '/Library/LaunchDaemons' directory.

He provides an example of such a .plist that can be easily modified to accommodate both your particular '/etc/gettytab' entry as well as your particular serial device, just as was done previously with the enabling line in the '/etc/ttys' file.

I won't copy his example .plist here. See the full article:

Serial Console in Mac OS X

He also discusses a method of automatic login, which wasn't mentioned previously in this Hint, but which may appeal to some.

Should you need further detail on selecting/constructing a proper 'gettytab' entry for your application, I would refer you to the article I mentioned in the previous post, as well as an examination of the '/etc/gettytab' file itself.

Hugh



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