How to go on without hyperterminal : (

[Polossatik]

I never used Hyperterminal , really dislike the program.
Currently using Putty.
It just works ™

and it's cross platform

[TopherTheME]

I'll check out putty when I get the time. As of right now I'm kind of tic'ed off about MS getting rid of the API for serial communication in Excel. While I can do everything with matlab, sometimes having a big spreadsheet is just nicer to have. Apparently you can in fact still do it with Active X but every time I tried to use Active X stuff it ends up in disaster.

[Frenchie]

Another vote for putty on Windows, and Minicom on Linux - even when I had hyperterminal I avoided it in favour of Putty (well to be fair, I avoid doing serial under windows as much as possible).

[technovm]

You can use Simple Terminal, it does not require any installation and works on win 7 64bit

http://www.mcselec.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=156&Itemid=54

[NiHaoMike]

Funny enough I never touch matlab, somehow I just don't like it.

I just started using Matlab this semester and I keep getting confused by it. Probably because I'm so used to Java and now C++ programming.

I know someone who uses Python as a calculator...

[dengorius]

another PuTTY fan, but I also used RealTerm (http://realterm.sourceforge.net/) which is a bit more fancy

[scrat]

Funny enough I never touch matlab, somehow I just don't like it.

I just started using Matlab this semester and I keep getting confused by it. Probably because I'm so used to Java and now C++ programming.

I know someone who uses Python as a calculator...

I think you can't compare Java or C++ (and Python, but I don't know much of it) with Matlab, they are intended for completely different uses. For example, Matlab is now written in Java, and it can run code written in C/C++. It is a complete platform, where language is a part of the whole thing.
The most important difference between Matlab and a programming language or a compiler is that, although you can use it to build a standalone application, it is more intended to make application "prototyping" or engineering tools, which don't have to be bullet proof, but have to do the job, be easily customizable and require little time for developing.