[geeks] Interactive serial terminal programs

[James Sharp]

So I'm going to be writing a rather large application for my fire department...including dispatch, training records, fire incident records and equipment maintenance.

Since I've got myself a couple of multiport serial boards and a few serial terminals, I was planning on doing it as a character-based application.  But what I'm trying to figure out is the best way of handling that.  So far, I've come up with two possibilites...

1) Write everything in php, run a local web server tied into the database engine...create a dummy account that spawns lynx as its login shell.  Use lynx to front end those php pages.

2) Write the program in C and use the ncurses/forms library to handle display formatting.

Any other ideas or suggestions?  Preferably something Open Source...I'm running on a limited budget here.