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uCon:
Embedded System Console
Latest update:    08/14/2024
Download here    (crc/md5: ed01018c/3a013d3dd1b7141453151aa1a67deafe)
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uCon:

At first glance, uCon is a terminal emulator (i.e. an alternative to hypterterminal).  Dig a little deeper, and a lot of other handy "stuff" shows up: scripting, function keys/buttons, timestamping, logging, telnet/plink/comport backend options, network servers, network access of com port, etc.  


uCon was originally written to be a "terminal server" superset.  The goal was to provide terminal emulator-ish capabilities for the user local to the PC (and the device connected to the PC's COM port), but also allow remote users to connect through the PC's network port using Telnet.  In addition to basic remote access, the requirement was to support the ability to have "multi-user-access".  In other words, while someone was locally accessing the COM port through uCon's GUI, additional remote users could simultaneously access the same port using Telnet and uCon's terminal server.  This, as it turns out, was the beginning.  uCon has been around since 2001 and is still an active development project.  Features are regularly being added, so if you have an idea for a new feature (big or small), don't hesitate to contact the author.

uCon's Terminal Server

As is somewhat implied by the above diagram, uCon provides many other facilities that are applicable, but certainly not limited, to typical embedded systems development.  Refer to uCon's web-based manpages for complete details.

Multiple Back Ends:
Initially uCon was developed to support only a COM port back end.  Since then, telnet and PuTTY Link (plink) have been added to the list (plink provides ssh).

Logging:
There are two types of logging in uCon: standard and long-term.  Standard logging simply takes a log file name and copies all interaction with the target to that file.  Long-term logging assumes that the terminal session will potentially be up for days or even weeks and the amount of data logged will be significant enough that it will need to be managed.  In this mode, each day, uCon automatically creates a new log file and checks to see if the total accumulation of log file data has exceeded a user-defined maximum.  If it has, it will delete the oldest log file in the bunch so that it is essentially keeping a circular queue of log files.

Time Stamping:
Each line of output can be preceded by one of several different time-of-day strings.  This allows the user to keep track of line-by-line timing if needed; yet does not require that the target itself generate the time stamps.

Programmable Function Keys & Clickable Buttons:
Function keys are programmable and can be activated by either a keypress or a mouse button click.  An additional set of 16 clickable buttons are also available for ease of repetitive data entry.  The buttons do not have any keyboard mapping; they are accessible only by the mouse.

Data Transfer To/From the Target:
uCon supports XMODEM and TFTP client as a means of data transfer to and from the target.

Servers:
To support typical needs of an embedded system development environment, uCon has the following servers built in:  TFTP, FTP, DHCP/BOOTP, SYSLOG.  Each of these servers are configurable and are useful for transactions with a single client (i.e. one at a time).  These servers are not meant for use by a large number of simultaneous transactions with mutliple clients; rather, they provide the basic services needed to interface with a single embedded target.

Scripting:
The scripting facility within uCon is fairly extensive.  It includes the ability to interact with both the target and the user and supports conditional branching.  Interaction with the target is through whatever back end is active (COM port, Telnet, SSH) and interaction with the user is through familiar Windows dialog boxes.  There are about 15 different scripting commands that allow the user to build reasonably sophisticated logical control within the script.  Click here for more information on uCon's scripting.

MicroMonitor Specific Capabilities:
uCon also has knowledge of MicroMonitor (uMon).  It can backup and/or restore a set of TFS files, edit an ASCII file on the target in TFS, and includes the MONCMD and NEWMON facilities in the scripting command set.


Look and Feel:
uCon looks like a terminal emulator.  It just has a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes.
uCon's Look and Feel


Wanna try it?
Click here(action=purge) or here to download a self-extracting executable. The installation is very basic.  If the defaults are used, it simply creates a 'C:/program files/ucon' (or equivalent, depending on your system) directory on your machine and installs the necessary files to that directory.  It also adds an item to your programs list, asks if you want a desktop shortcut and includes an uninstaller accessible through the program list.