Getting Started

Appendix 7: HyperTerminal................................................................................

Appendix 7: HyperTerminal

This book origianally used HyperTerminal for PC communications, but some
folks were so adamant in their revulsion of HyperTerminal that I had to finally
admit that maybe this wasn’t just the pervasive hatred of MicroSoft, but was due
to HyperTerminal itself. It is very hard to get set up and going properly and some
folks said it was buggy and unreliable. I received permission from Br@y++ to use
his terminal so that is the one shown in the Quick Start Section. The remaining
sections still have illustrations from HyperTerminal, but you can and probably
should use Bray’s Terminal since it is simple and lots of folks love it. Both are
free.

Test Your Connection:
The Butterfly comes with built-in code that allows you to communicate with a PC
COM Port to change “Your name”. This is a good way to see if your hardware is
working like it should be.

• Connect an RS-232 cable between your Butterfly and your PC as in Figure
  10. Open HyperTerminal
  
  
  • On you PC taskbar GOTO Start, Programs, Accessories,
    Communications and click on HyperTerminal, then take a deep breath,
    because HyperTerminal was not really designed with your use in mind,
    so it can be confusing (but it IS free).
  
  
  • Where it asks for a new connection name, call it Thunderfly or
    something equally memorable, and select the least dorky icon you can
    find in the list. I favor the atom next to the phone, because it makes no
    sense whatever.