TTyGO Is a Tiny VT220 Arduino-Based Serial Terminal You Can Build Yourself

There is a good chance you use the built-in Arduino IDE serial terminal when you work on your projects. For example, you can print some simple text to serial every time a function runs in order to verify that it is actually being called. Or you can print out the value of a variable to see what it is doing during any given step of your code. That’s not unique to Arduino, and serial terminals have been in use since the early days of computing. If you want to make a dedicated serial terminal, TTyGO is an inexpensive, Arduino-based option to build yourself.

“Terminals” have come in a variety of styles and standards over the years, but the DEC VT100 made the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard the most popular after its release in 1978. The DEC VT220 terminal added more advanced features, and is what the TTyGO is based on. It uses Arduino libraries, so it will work on just about any development board on the market today. It has been tested on both the Arduboy handheld video game console and a TTGO ESP8266 with a built-in OLED display and push buttons.

All you need to do to get TTyGO working is install the required Arduino libraries and the provided code. While Arduino-based terminals aren’t anything new, TTyGO has been setup specifically to work with just a few buttons. That means you likely won’t be typing long strings of text with this terminal, but it is very useful for debugging your projects. You can also use it to see what a headless computer is doing, such as when you are using a Raspberry Pi without any kind of monitor connected. The total build cost should be under $15 if you use an ESP8266 board, making it the most affordable dedicated terminal you’re likely to come across.