picocom is a minimal dumb-terminal emulation program. It is, in principle, very much like minicom, only it’s “pico” instead of “mini”.
It was designed to serve as a simple, manual, modem configuration, testing, and debugging tool. It has also served (quite well) as a low-tech serial communications program to allow access to all types of devices that provide serial consoles. It could also prove useful in many other similar tasks. It can be used in embedded systems, since its memory footprint is rather small (approximately 40K, when stripped and minimally configured).
This is free and open source software.
Website: github.com/npat-efault/picocom
Support:
Developer: Nick Patavalis
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
picocom is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Serial Terminals | |
|---|---|
| tio | Straightforward TTY I/O with profiles and clean command syntax |
| minicom | Menu-driven comms tool with dialing, scripting, and capture |
| ComChan | Fast Rust monitor with plotting, logging, and TUI workflow |
| picocom | Minimal modem tester for low-overhead device console access |
| Commy | Small cross-platform utility for UART, TTY, and COM devices |
| ssterm | Python-based console app with easy setup and output formatting |
| opencu | Portable cu-style console for quick Linux device connections |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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