Sjaak is working on a branch of the Bus Pirate firmware known as ‘newterm‘ because it contains a new terminal interface. It’s ready for an alpha release (download here), and we’d like to invite curious testers to take the new firmware for a spin. Newterm is only compatible with the v4 bootloader using pirate-loader or ds30 Loader, so upgrade first if you’re still using p24qp and the v2 bootloader.
Newterm has a bunch of new stuff:
- Updated and revised command line
- Accepts strings of commands at once (configure a mode in one line)
- Menu and syntax are merged, removed sub-menus for pull-ups
- Command history recall
- BASIC script engine
- ASCII data can be sent to directly to a bus using “quotes”
- Full voltage reports and pin state information
- Updated help
There’s some documentation in the forum, and demo posts for new features will follow. Newterm will become the official Bus Pirate firmware branch after extensive user testing. What are your thoughts on incrementing to v5 to commemorate the changeover? Share your experience with the newterm demo in the newterm thread.
More screenshots below.
Press h for a history of the 10 most recently used commands.
An updated voltage report shows the state of each pin and the color of the (Seeed) probe cable leads.
The BASIC interpreter stores and runs scripts to make complicated bus interactions easier.
An extended, reformatted help screen gives more details on a single screen.
There’s lots more changes under the hood. Check out the newterm source in the SVN. There’s also a new easter egg, and a prize for the first person to find it.