ESD Terminal v0.94

ESD Terminal version 0.94 has now been loaded. This program is a serial terminal program designed to be used with a Bluegiga bluetooth device, or as a simple serial terminal. The changes include fixing some button functions (such as Call SPP which went missing), improving the speed on old computers, adding a Hex(adecimal) mode, echo, SPP and BGIO toolbars which are saved when the program is exited. The .cfg file contains all the settings in text format and can be viewed with Notepad.

ESD Terminal has some advantages over Putty which appears to be the default Windows 7 serial terminal program. ESD Terminal can handle a broken connection, and will automatically try to reconnect once a second. More features will be added to ESD Terminal, and the next one is to be able to log all data to a file. Any suggestions for improvements will be listened to carefully.

ESDN

The website has now moved to www.esdn.com.au which should be easier to remember than the last one. We have this website for 2 years, and plan to keep it renewed now indefinitely. Please update your bookmarks to reflect this change. Thanks.

ESD Terminal v0.93

ESD Terminal has now been updated. With the advent of Windows 7, Hyperterminal seems to have disappeared, and the Windows 7 replacement seems to be Putty which is a free download. Unfortunately Putty has a few hangups - ie, lose the com port and the program hangs up and has to be restarted. This version of ESD terminal handles this a lot more gracefully - the Statusbar will show the status of the conenction as either Online or Offline. Even better, disconnect the USB dongle, the Online changes to Offline, and when the USB dongle is reinstated, Offline becomes Online.

We have also added a AutoDetect for the COM port which fills the Combo Box with a list of available COM ports, one of which may be selected and connected.

New features are MUX mode, improved graphics for the PIO dir/on/off functions, updated help and other stuff. The main purpose of this program is to help us debug bluetooth connections using Bluegiga iWrap, and any comments on useful changes/upgrades/enhancements would be appreciated.

ESD Terminal v0.92

A new version of ESD Terminal has been posted. This is still a beta version (the aim is for v1.00 to be the first real problem-free version). The most important change here is the ability of the program to capture the MAC addresses from an INQUIRY command and load them into the Combo Box labelled MAC. This new version also has better support for shift characters such as : Any ideas on improvements would be appreciated - leave an anonymous comment. We plan to release a new version every month.

USB-WT12 in case

We now have the next version of the USB-WT11 and USB-WT12 available, and they fit inside a small case with a cap. The case can be either opaque or transparent, - a photo will be put up soon.

USB-WT12 and USB-WT41

Added the USB-WT12 and USB-Wt41 long range bluetooth modules. These photos are of the prototypes only, and are not representative of the finished product. The SMD leds now allow the status of all i/o ports to be easily viewed, and the reset button has been added.

USB-barcode

A new product, the USB-barcode has been added. This dongle is very simple, pressing a button activates the barcode scanner which then sends the barcode back via the serial port at 9600 baud.

Web update

Website has been updated to have some brief info on the sensors, and the products page has been improved visually.

ESD Terminal

The products page now has the first beta version (v0.90) of a terminal program which is designed to help get up to speed with using the Bluegiga bluetooth devices very quickly. In Windows 7, Putty works well but can be annoying to setup the serial port and baud rate each time. The ESD Terminal program remembers the COM port and baud rate setting after each session (saved in the ESDTerminal.cfg text file).

USB adaptors

The first two USB adaptors have been added to enable a computer to have Bluetooth or Infrared capability. More USB adaptors are planned in the near future including a barcode scanner and a datalogger.