- Overview of the Android terminal emulator:
The world of computers is witnessing a change, just as it witnessed in the 90s. In the early 90s microprocessor became cheaper and terminal based dumb computers got replaced by powerful workstations. Today we are noticing that these powerful workstations are running out of trend and are being replaced by equally powerful but more portable mobile computers. When we say mobile computers we are explicitly referring to the handheld devices. Today handheld devices have become powerful enough to host almost any application that was traditionally meant for large desktop computers. This has been a result of the revolution in the manufacturing processes at the nano level. Today even smaller but more powerful chips are being developed that will one day surely render the large desktop computers useless.
One such application that desktop computers were extensively used for is that of terminal emulators. But since now mobile and handheld devices are equally powerful, it was only a matter of time that someone developed a mobile terminal emulator. The first such emulator to hit the market is the android terminal emulator. It has been specifically designed to run on hand held devices running on the android operating system and emulates VT-100. For those who are not familiar with the VT-100, it was a terminal based computer that was very popular in the 70s. Most of the terminal emulators target VT-100 since it has the largest customer base.
- Various features of the android terminal emulator:
As already stated, the android terminal emulator targets VT-100. It is also possible to access the entire file system of the hand held device itself. It also allows the user to perform an installation of the command line applications based on the Linux shell. It provides the user with a full screen QWERTY keyboard. However some users have reported problems while using these keyboards, for them it’s best if they downloaded and installed Hacker’s keyboard IME.
Another very important feature is that with the android terminal emulator a user can send command line parameters to communicate with the sites that do not support the modern FTP or World Wide Web protocols. One of the features that is absent from the android terminal emulator is that it has no support for the Telnet and SSH. Even though in the current version it is lacking, but such features are expected to be included as an inherent part of the application in the near future.
- How to get the android terminal emulator:
The android terminal emulator can be downloaded directly on the handheld devices that support Google play. If you have a mobile device that doesn’t supports Google play then you can download it from the official website i.e. github.com
One of the misconceptions about the android terminal emulator is that it can help in gaining access to root or in other words to hack a mobile device. Please note that no such features are neither supported nor encouraged by the android terminal emulator.
The author of this article has worked on the development team of the android terminal emulator; he also provides support for the same and is also involved in its documentation. He writes regular tips on Terminal emulator on www.rocketsoftware.com
