Tag Archives: Unix

Using a terminal emulator on Mac


Dumb title for a blog post? No, not really I guess…

ZOC Terminal emulatorI have been using a terminal emulator, basically ever since I got away from the VT100 terminal:

  • ICE.TCP Pro
  • KEAVT
  • Reflection ‘X’

And a few other obscure applications that I cannot even recall anymore.
Currently, and over the last 6 to 8 years, I have been using ZOC.

The background of this story is: In the beginning these were the first DOS PC’s and later some Windows based machines that needed to interface with (in my case) VAX VMS, and later with the other UNIXes.

But why use a terminal emulator on MAC, for crying out loud? I hear you think… OS X is a Unix, so it should be all native, right?
Wrong! Well, kind of…

There are so many small (and bigger) differences when using various systems that it pays off to have a program that allows you to tune into these differences. Nothing more annoying than a backspace key that does not work or key-combinations that act different than you would expect.
This is even more true when you work with a mix of different operating systems, Solaris, HP UX, Oracle Linux, perhaps even some IBM OS’s.
And for when you would like to have further tune-ability of you toolkit, ranging from colors, to sizes, from fonts to layout.  Frivolities? Perhaps, but if you spent a lot of your time everyday in such a  tool, it does make a difference.

Printer terminal, also a terminal emulatorMore importantly are configurable logging, for documentation and troubleshooting. You can regard this as the modern variation to the old school print terminal (who can remember those?)
Configuring transfer types, modem and commutation settings and keeping these organized. As well as password storage and administrative support.

Well, basically, this is why I use a terminal emulator on my MAC!
And I think I found a valid tool in ZOC, by Markus Schmidt. Please check it out ZOC

Well, I hope you get to enjoy your terminal work as much as I do!