frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Show HN: Whippy Term - GUI terminal for embedded development (Linux and Windows)

https://whippyterm.com
96•SurvivorTed•1y ago

Comments

SurvivorTed•1y ago
New GUI based serial terminal for embedded development (Linux and Windows)

Hi all, just wanted to let everyone know of my new open-source serial (and TCP/IP) terminal program aimed at embedded developers.

I wasn't happy with what was available on Linux, so I decided to write my own. The goals were to have a modern GUI (tab based, pull out panels, etc) and I wanted support for binary protocols.

It has support for ANSI escape sequences, XModem (up/down), binary blocks, hex dumps, bridging 2 open connections, and more.

Source link: https://github.com/TheBeef/WhippyTerm

This is the first release (version 1.0), and I am hoping people will have a look (and hopefully like it).

stavros•1y ago
This seems really nice, thank you! Does it support auto-reconnect, like `tio` does?
SurvivorTed•1y ago
It doesn't currently support it, but I was planning in the next release (a number of people have asked for it so it's a definitely going to add).
svth•1y ago
Why no macOS support?
SurvivorTed•1y ago
I don't have a mac. I did have a guy who was going to add support for it but he backed out.

The main GUI is built in QT so making a mac port shouldn't be too hard (the serial port detection would be the hardest part I think).

pjmlp•1y ago
Kudos for going with Qt. It looks nice.
mystified5016•1y ago
Oh damn, this could easily replace my own bespoke serial monitors.

Can a plugin filter the list of available ports? For instance serial over Bluetooth creates two virtual ports for initiating and accepting connections (on windows at least). My bespoke monitor filters these and only shows the outbound ports to the user. It also pulls in the Bluetooth device name from WinRT, etc.

SurvivorTed•1y ago
There isn't any filtering of serial ports (it lists everything it finds).

However it does support bookmarks. With bookmarks you open the serial port you want to use then select to bookmark it. WhippyTerm will take the current config you are using and save it for later. You can then just pick the bookmark later to reopen that connection. Bookmarks also store some of the settings (like is it a binary or text connection, terminal size, colors, etc).

It's a lot like bookmarks in a web browser.

SurvivorTed•1y ago
Thinking about it a bit more, if someone wanted to filter the comports like this you could copy the standard comport IO driver and make a new plugin that only listed the outbound ports (you could also restrict the list to Bluetooth devices).

Internally the comport IO driver is just a plugin that gets compiled into the main exe (any plugin can be made into a built in, just add the source to the .pro file, add a call to the register function and now the extern plugin is built in).

So you could copy the existing comport IO driver, change the 'REGISTER_PLUGIN_FUNCTION_PRIV_NAME' and 'COMPORT_URI_PREFIX' defines to something else (so it doesn't conflict with the built in 'COM' one). Change the code so filter any comport that isn't for the Bluetooth device. Compile the source and package the resulting .dll using the ExternPluginMaker tool. Done

When the new plugin is installed the new connection dialog you will list your detected "devices" listed along with all the other types (you could prefix them with bluetooth for example).

Feel free to email me if you would like more details.

AriedK•1y ago
This is neat. The send buffers and live display give it a nice edge over something like Tera Term. One nitpick: I couldn't find the option to disable autoscroll on incoming serial streams. Like 'Auto scroll only in bottom line' in Tera Term. Thanks!
SurvivorTed•1y ago
It seems like I missed this option. I'll be adding it to the list of things to do for version 1.1 :)

Thanks for the feed back.

alias_neo•1y ago
This looks great. I don't do serial/embedded stuff too often at the moment; ESPHome took away much of my need to hand-build stuff (happy and sad about that), but when I do I always find it slightly irritating to remember the syntax to connect with minicom or screen (I'm a Linux user).

I'm sorry I can't give more useful feedback at the moment, but this is certainly encouraging me to come up with an idea for an embedded project so I can try it!

ac29•1y ago
Can you add Linux build instructions for people not on Debian/Ubuntu?

I didnt see anything on the github or in the source download.

Alternatively an AppImage or Flatpak is a nice way to test software.

SurvivorTed•1y ago
Can't really help with exact instructions for other distros, but the "in a nutshell" is you need to install qtcreator and QT5.

After you have them installed and working all you have to do is load the .pro file from the Project directory (https://github.com/TheBeef/WhippyTerm/tree/main/Project) you should be able to just hit the green debug/go button and it should work (you do need to be using the gcc toolchain). This is the same for the Windows build.

Hope this helps.

Potential session/cache leakage between workspace instances or consumer accounts

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/74066
121•chatmasta•2h ago•45 comments

Explanation of everything you can see in htop/top on Linux

https://peteris.rocks/blog/htop/
158•theanonymousone•4h ago•22 comments

What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)

https://wozniak.ca/blog/2014/08/03/1/index.html
41•ciconia•3d ago•25 comments

Astrophysicists Puzzle over Webb’s New Universe

https://www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysicists-puzzle-over-webbs-new-universe-20260702/
124•jnord•6h ago•69 comments

Maybe you should learn something

https://www.marginalia.nu/log/a_135_learn/
290•tylerdane•12h ago•143 comments

Postgres data stored in Parquet on S3: LTAP architecture explained

https://www.databricks.com/blog/lakebase-ltap-rethinking-database-storage
110•andrenotgiant•3d ago•34 comments

The bottleneck might be the air in the room

https://blog.mikebowler.ca/2026/07/03/co2-and-decision-making/
591•gslin•9h ago•343 comments

Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

https://www.freepressjournal.in/education/breaking-the-bird-barrier-scientist-decodes-zebra-finch...
28•yyyk•3d ago•3 comments

Performance per dollar is getting faster and cheaper

https://www.wafer.ai/blog/glm52-amd
310•latchkey•18h ago•125 comments

Leanstral 1.5: Proof abundance for all

https://mistral.ai/news/leanstral-1-5/
310•programLyrique•17h ago•87 comments

Costco is the anti-Amazon

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-anti-amazon/
491•bookofjoe•1d ago•449 comments

Night Witches – all-female Soviet aviator regiment WW2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
46•gverrilla•3d ago•16 comments

The Vespa at 80: Why the Italian scooter remains the coolest thing on 2 wheels

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/vespa-italy-postwar-design-9.7252641
83•cf100clunk•3d ago•78 comments

Mir Books – Books from the Soviet Era

https://mirtitles.org
132•clmul•3d ago•64 comments

Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research

https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-environment-science-and-economy/giant-trees-have-no-trouble-...
243•hhs•17h ago•107 comments

Steam Controller Auto-Charge – pilot to magnetic charging puck using CV

https://github.com/FossPrime/Steam-Controller-Auto-Charge
173•zdw•17h ago•42 comments

How working memory could give rise to consciousness

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-working-memory-could-give-rise-to-consciousness/
20•bookofjoe•2h ago•18 comments

Jamesob's guide to running SOTA LLMs locally

https://github.com/jamesob/local-llm
381•livestyle•1d ago•172 comments

FreeBSD ate my RAM

https://crocidb.com/post/freebsd-ate-my-ram/
176•theanonymousone•20h ago•72 comments

MSI Center – How to gain SYSTEM privileges in seconds

https://mrbruh.com/msicenter/
124•MrBruh•15h ago•51 comments

Synthesis is harder than analysis

https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2026/07/03/synthesis-is-harder-than-analysis/
126•azhenley•13h ago•30 comments

A martian rock has lots of carbon on it, and it's not clear why

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/07/a-martian-rock-has-lots-of-carbon-on-it-and-its-not-clear...
21•Brajeshwar•2h ago•1 comments

SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine

https://github.com/searxng/searxng
249•theanonymousone•19h ago•69 comments

The firefighting system of the Van der Heyden brothers in 17th century Amsterdam

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-amsterdam-invented-the-fire-department/
118•zdw•17h ago•25 comments

Ship traces journey Spanish Armada sailors made in 1588

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/06/30/it-is-a-huge-honour-ship-traces-journey-spanish-arm...
20•austinallegro•3d ago•11 comments

2026 Unslop AI-Written Fiction Contest Results

https://www.hyperstitionai.com/unslop-results
46•networked•10h ago•113 comments

Agentic coding notes from Galapagos Island

https://danluu.com/ai-coding/#appendix-agentic-loops-and-writing-this-post
147•gm678•11h ago•67 comments

New serious vulnerabilities spiked around release of Claude Mythos Preview

https://epoch.ai/data-insights/cve-severity-spike
141•cubefox•18h ago•61 comments

The Reports of Jim Carrey's Death Are a Failure Mode

https://tane.dev/2026/07/the-reports-of-jim-carreys-death-are-a-failure-mode/
12•taubek•4h ago•7 comments

Does average person understand that all disc media dies too?

10•kingleopold•1h ago•33 comments