Terminal Mode

Mode 1 · Supernova only · Introduced in firmware v4.4.0

Terminal Mode turns the virtual COM port into an interactive text shell. Open the port in any serial terminal (PuTTY, screen, minicom, the Arduino Serial Monitor) and type commands to drive I2C, I3C and GPIO directly. No Mission Control, no SDK, no code.

It’s built for quick bring-up work: scanning a bus, poking at a register, toggling a pin to see what happens.

Danger

Not available on Binho Pulsar. Selecting this mode on a Pulsar is rejected with an invalid-parameter error. The shell’s I2C and I3C both run over the I3C peripheral, which Pulsar’s MCU does not have.

Quick start

{% stepper %} {% step %}

Put the device in terminal mode

python device_settings_cli.py set --cdc-mode terminal

The tool resets the device: the mode only takes effect at boot. {% endstep %}

{% step %}

Open the COM port

Any serial terminal will do. Baud rate, parity and stop bits are ignored: this is a USB CDC endpoint, not a real UART, so pick anything. {% endstep %}

{% step %}

Press Enter

The banner and prompt appear:

Binho Supernova Interactive Shell
Type 'help' for commands.
>

{% endstep %}

{% step %}

Explore

help lists every command with a short description. info reports the device name and firmware version. {% endstep %} {% endstepper %}

What the shell can do

• I2C: speed select (100k / 400k / 1M), bus scan, read, write, and combined write-read.
• I3C: clock configuration, scan, ENTDAA / RSTDAA / target reset, SDR read/write/write-read, broadcast and direct CCCs, HDR-DDR read/write, IBI enable/disable/wait/read, and hot-join polling.
• GPIO: per-pin read and write on pins 1–6.
• Built-ins: help and info.

Line editing is included: 16 commands of history on the arrow keys, Tab completion of the first word, Ctrl-C to cancel a line, and a @ prefix for silent mode. Lines are limited to 256 characters and 32 arguments.

Note

Which I2C bus? The shell drives I2C through the I3C peripheral’s legacy-I2C mode, which means devices must be on the I3C / Tiger-Eye port: not the Qwiic connector that the HID interface’s I2C uses.

What it can’t do

• SPI: no shell commands.
• UART bridging: the COM port is the terminal here. Use UART Passthrough for bridging.
• Analog reads, DAC, VREF, and the RGB LED: not exposed.
• Power rail control: the shell powers both switchable rails to 1.8 V at startup so the buses and level shifters work, but there is no command to change the voltage or turn a rail off.
• Firmware update or bootloader entry: no shell command. Both remain reachable over HID.
• More than one session: a single USB host, single port.

Transfers are capped at 256 bytes by the shell’s buffers, and commands run one at a time, blocking until they finish. An operation that doesn’t complete within two seconds prints ERROR(timeout).

Getting back out

Caution

While Terminal Mode is active, the HID protocol commands are not serviced: the shell owns the bus hardware, so Mission Control and the SDKs cannot drive I2C, SPI, UART, GPIO or I3C.

The HID system channel does keep running, which is the way back:

python device_settings_cli.py set --cdc-mode uart_passthrough

This works while the device is still in Terminal Mode. Device info, reset, bootloader entry and voltage control stay available over HID for the same reason.

Credit

The shell is a deliberate emulation of the open-source I3CBlaster project, which inspired its design and command style.