Beyond the Terminal: Rethinking Software Tools for Hardware Engineers

Hardware and embedded systems engineers rely on software tools every day, yet many of their workflows remain fragmented across terminal applications, scripts, log files, and spreadsheets. Tools such as PuTTY and Tera Term are useful and mature, but engineers working on complex products often need to build their own workarounds to manage multiple devices, search logs, filter debug output, and organize debugging sessions.

This talk explores the gap between the way hardware engineers work and the software tools available to support them.

Using EmbTerm, a beta-stage terminal application I am developing, I will demonstrate how a more organized debugging workspace can help engineers manage multiple terminal sessions, search and filter logs, and maintain reusable workspaces. I will also discuss the challenges of extending this approach to protocols such as Modbus and CAN.

Beyond terminal tooling, I will explore other recurring problems in hardware development, including project planning under uncertain timelines, hardware review workflows, and debugging collaboration. These challenges raise an important question: how can we build tools around the realities of hardware engineering rather than expecting engineers to adapt their workflows to tools designed for other domains?

The goal is to share practical lessons from building EmbTerm, gather feedback from fellow engineers, and explore opportunities to develop more accessible, reusable tools for the hardware engineering community.