terminal to a serial port

[Kim Holburn]

I want to open a terminal session to a serial port.  I can't see how to do it.  This is easy in Windows 9+ or 2K.  I use hyperterm.

I tried minicom but it insists trying to talk to a modem.  I don't have a modem connected, just a device with a serial port.  I just want a direct connection to the serial port, to have a window acting as a terminal emulator.  How hard is that?  I take it that the serial ports are /dev/ttyS0 ans /dev/ttyS1 .  If I try and read one I just get an error:

> tail -f /dev/ttyS0
tail: /dev/ttyS0: Input/output error
tail: tail.c:728: recheck: Assertion `valid_file_spec (f)' failed.
Abort

Kim