Choosing a terminal emulator can be a bit unnerving when you first start. There’s a wide range of possible systems, variants, and operational considerations. However, it’s not as hard as it looks. You can get a good terminal emulator that can simplify operations and do a lot for productivity quite easily. Important: You should consult with your computer support people to get a good map of the operational issues before you make up your mind, but we’ve got a good basic guide to selection issues to help you decide.

Terminal emulators and systems

Depending on the type of system you use and your operational needs, you may require:

• Data security – This is critical, basic “risk management” for major systems. It’s also considered best practice by IT professionals as a good all-round way to insure against any possibility of compromised data systems.
• Keyboard mapping – This is used to achieve maximum fluency in your programming, and it’s a particularly valuable, productive asset for programmers.
• Character set support – Going very much hand in hand with keyboard mapping, character set support provides good operational support for all program languages.
• Multi session capabilities – The ability to run several applications simultaneously is obviously useful, but the new generation of multi session means these applications can run independently and be configured separately.
• Keyboard macros – Another high productivity feature, used for commonly required functions.
• User defined toolbars – More productivity, creating a simple “point and click” capability for navigation.

Windows based systems – An overview of PC and digital device terminal emulators

Probably the best examples of terminal emulator functionality are the Windows terminal emulator family, a range of packages designed to provide PC-level efficiency. As you’ll have noticed from the list above, many of the high productivity features of the terminal emulators have a lot in common with typical PC-style operations.

Windows terminal emulation isn’t really “Microsoft Word for terminals”. It’s actually faster because things like the character sets and keyboard mapping drastically speed up the work. Using PCs for terminal emulation has hugely improved the whole operational spectrum of terminals, and taken a lot of the nitpicking steps that used to be the curse of programmers out of basic programming functions. That’s what makes PC terminal emulation so special. Windows terminal emulation is ultra-efficient, can be used on any Windows operating network.

These Windows terminal emulators can be configured for up to 80 different types of terminal, including the major league IBM, UNIX and other top systems. You’ll also find that the best terminal emulators on the market are the new generation of emulators for advanced systems like Windows 7. These have a lot of grunt, and can work with truly demanding programs very efficiently.

When choosing your terminal emulator, you can be as selective as you like. The top suppliers are very much productivity-focused, so if you give them a shopping list of requirements for your system, you’ll get excellent results.