ttycat(1)

💖 ttycat — Serial Line Output Utility 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because ttycat is one of those little tools that looks boring and is actually doing something kind of iconic. it lives in the Qualcomm Atheros Open Powerline Toolkit (that's the ttycat(1) page you're reading, section 1, general commands, no cap).

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

like, here's how you actually call her:

ttycat [options] [file] [file] [>stdout]

ttycat [options] [<stdin] [>stdout]

two whole moods. files in, or stdin in. either way stdout is where the magic goes. 🫶

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so what does she do?? she copies one or more files to a serial device. that's it, that's the whole job. she's giving traditional cat energy but with main character standards — she expects stdout to be a serial tty device, not just any old file.

and the way she does it?? literally so thoughtful:

• she configures stdout before writing
• she restores the original configuration afterwards

periodt. no leaving your terminal in a weird state, we love a responsible queen. 💅

you can use her to send data to the local Atheros UART-enabled powerline device. but — and this is the important part — if the remote powerline device is NOT UART-enabled, this isn't the move. instead:

• use program edru to capture and display data arriving at the remote host
• use program edsu to send files in the opposite direction

this program is part of the Qualcomm Atheros Powerline Toolkit. see the AMP man page for an overview and installation instructions. iykyk. 📚

🦋 COMMENTS 🦋

ngl, this one's a little exclusive: this program only supports the Linux and MacOSX platforms, at present. soz to everyone else fr fr. 😭

💅 OPTIONS 💅

every single flag, bestie, no skipping:

• -s speed — the serial baud rate. supported baud rates are: 0, 50, 75, 110, 134, 150, 200, 300, 600, 1200, 1800, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, 230400, 460800, 500000 and 921600. (yes that's a lot of numbers, she's thorough ✨)
• -?, --help — print the program help summary on stdout. 🎀 this option takes precedence over other options on the command line — she does NOT wait her turn, she goes first, always.
• -?, --version — print program version information on stdout. also takes precedence over other options on the command line, same energy. and bestie, use this option when sending screen dumps to Atheros Technical Support so they know exactly which version of the Linux Toolkit you're running. help them help you, slay. 🔥

heads up: both of those last two use -? in the original, so that's exactly what's written here. copy it as-is, don't get creative with me.

🌈 ARGUMENTS 🌈

• file — the name of an input file. no assumptions are made about the file based on the filename or extension — she does not judge by vibes. also: input files are not modified. she's a reader, not a writer, respect. 🫶
• stdout — the name of a serial output device. an error will occur if the device is not a true tty device, as determined by the isatty function. and lowkey, depending on the amount of input data and the baud rate, serial output may take several seconds or several minutes. so maybe don't panic and close the terminal, okay?? she's working on it. 😭

⭐ EXAMPLES ⭐

here's the moment you've been waiting for. this command copies files abc.txt and def.bin to stdout, which must be an active serial device or an error will occur:

# ttycat abc.txt def.bin > /dev/ttyUSB1

iconic. ate. no notes. 👑

🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

amp(1), edru(1), edsu(1), int6kuart(1),

go read those too, they're the extended universe. 🌸

💜 CREDITS 💜

Charles Maier

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was open-plc-utils-0.0.3, from November 2013 — yeah she's vintage, she's a classic, she still works. bye now, go send some bytes. 💖✨🦋