Tera Term

If you are looking for a comprehensive terminal emulator, then you might want to have a look at Tera Term. It provides support for serial port and TCP/IP connections, various file transfer protocols, for scripts and more. Furthermore, its capabilities include VT100 and selected VT200/300 emulation, as well as TEK4010 emulation. The software places many useful controls at your disposal, which come in various languages.

Tera Term is free and open source. It can be installed like any lightweight Windows-based application, by following a wizard's instructions. Completing the operation should not take more than a few seconds. The software doesn't have any special requirements and it doesn't ask for too much processing power.

The main user interface looks like the basic command prompt you would find in Windows, except for the fact that it presents a series of top menus. Obviously, working with this program involves inputting a series of text commands, but you will have to establish a connection to a remote host first. Options for setting up a new connection are displayed automatically on a compact window, when you run the software. Besides specifying a host's name or IP address, you can also choose from different services, like Telnet, SSH or others, specify a port and more. Alternatively, you can define a new connection through a serial port, on the same window.

Tera Term comes with numerous customization options, for the interface's appearance and the terminal environment itself, for keyboard input, for SSH authenticating, forwarding or key generation and much more. You can find these options on separate windows, which can be displayed through the Setup menu.