Re: hosers-talk: RS/6000 console

[Jeff Schroeder <jeffs@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:10 PM 3/22/2002, Tom Plagge wrote:
> In addition to the old AS/400 I have sitting around in my room at home,
> I now have an RS/6000 running some old version of AIX.  It has a Power
> processor (not a PowerPC, but close) and a bunch of serial ports on the
> back; with my official IBM terminal, I can get an AIX login simply
> by plugging into one of them.
>
> I'm at school now, though, and the terminal is at home.  I want to use
> the serial port on my PC.  I gather from Google that the IBM serial
> setup is sort of braindead, using some sort of nonstandard pinouts, but
> I thought maybe one of you (Jeff?) might know how to deal with it.

I don't know too much about these old RS/6k's...  I imagine that what you'd 
have to do is first get the hardware communicating.  Find a schematic of 
your favourite port and compare it to the generic RS232 pinout.  Does your 
port have 25 pins or 9 pins?  Round or trapezoidal?  If it is the same, all 
you need is a null modem connection.  The next step would be to get a 
program to communicate.  I think the old RS6k's used VT5280 or 3164 (from 
memory, might be a bit off).  I remember using a special program when I 
worked at IBM that had these terminal settings.  If you use the wrong 
terminal you should at least get a connection of some sort...

What model RS6k do you have?  a 43p? :)  probably a 390 or something.  Does 
it have a key in front?  What terminal were you using?  An X-station or an 
ASCII terminal?  That would give you a key.  Try this page for a list of 
computers.

http://www1.ibmlink.ibm.com/cgi-bin/master?request=salesmanual&parms=SMS&xh=5ivD9xQNiuBgzx1USenGnN9332&xhi=usa.main%7Csalesmanual%5E&type=D&search=rs%2F6000&title=T&product=

jeff