TermTab5

h0lmes

TermTab5 is an Arduino/ESP32 touchscreen terminal firmware project with a VT100-style terminal core, on-screen keyboard, touch-driven menu system, board abstraction layer, settings persistence, Wi-Fi helpers, and optional screensaver-style animations.

The codebase targets M5 Tab5 and related ESP32 display hardware, while keeping a substantial part of the terminal and UI stack reusable and host-testable.

GitHub repo

Demo video
In this video is a custom made Z80-based handheld retro computer running RomWBW with Tab5 as a screen.

Powersoft

@h0lmes

Re: TermTab5
Hello,

Thank you for this great program. There is one thing that is unclear to me. How do I establish a serial connection with an external device? I plan to connect the terminal to a Forth computer and want to use the serial connection for that.
Which pins/connector did you use for your own computer?
I hope you can help me with this.
Kind regards, Jan

h0lmes

@Powersoft Hi!
Not visiting this forum very often, I'd have to see if notifications can be enabled.

So, to your question, if you download Tab5 schematics there's M5_BUS connector on page 4. You need pins 13 (aka U0RXD, aka G3) and 14 (aka U0TXD, aka G1). They use 3V3 logic levels but are 5V tolerant as per Espressif themselves (and my thorough testing).
Feel free to ask more questions.

Powersoft

@h0lmes
Thanks for your information, but i'm a bit confused. I asumed that I must used the black 30p connector on the backside. Wich pins on this connector I should use? Is it not posible to use the grove connector with pins G53 ,G54.

With kind regards,

Jan

easytarget

You should ythink about allowing the user to specify the port to use, especially on the Tab5, which has lots of IO ports.

Also; your (or your AI coder) seems to be confused.

pin 13 = U0TXD = G37
pin14 = U0RXD = G38

Not G3/G1

The P4 can basically mux hardware Serial onto any pin combo. And software serial can handle any pins that dont mux.

Pins G49 and G50 are on ExtPort1 on the side of the unit, (so are G0 and G1, but these should be avoided unless you understand how G0 is used at boot time).

There is a RS485 port on pins G20/G21/G34 (TX/RX/Dir) that would also be sensible to support.

And, of course, G53 and G54 on the grove connector (port-A) can be used, by default this is the User I2C bus (I2C1). If you don't want to use any external I2C peripherals then it is a good choice.