nios2-terminal can't read input from pipe

I get this error when I try to pipe even one line into nios2-terminal:

nios2-terminal: error: Gathering input from STDIO

I'm running 16.1 196 on Windows 7.

I've tried using cat as well as my own C program that does a popen() around nios2-terminal.

cat test.cmd | nios2-terminal -i 0

If I type the input manually into nios2-terminal, it works fine. Unfortunately, I need to send many lines to the nios2 CPU.

I've searched the forum posts and have found inconsistent information, including a mention that this could be a bug that has not been fixed yet.

I do not currently have Quartus Pro so can't use the System Console TCL method.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Bob A.

NVidia