Re: Serial console on IPX (Was: Sparc serial port pinout?)

[ferret@phonewave.net]

I don't know of anyone at all in the town I live in who would have the
right equipment. I had access to a hard at the CMU campus at the time that
I picked up the machine. I live in a fairly small town, and the closest
city is about 75 miles away.

So, unless I can actually scare up a temporary head locally (perhaps at   
one of the local ISPs) 'borrowing' a head will not be an option.


On Sat, 6 Nov 1999, Walter Keeler wrote:


> 
> Can a sysadmin friend take you into his jobsite some weekend? You don't
> necessarily need full-time access to monitor/keyboard/mouse, just long
> enough to be sure you're set up well enough to do further work headless.
> 
> Also, having at least part-time access to a head makes recompiling
> kernels, etc., FAR less painful. (Believe me, I know!)
> 
> On Sat, 6 Nov 1999 ferret@phonewave.net wrote:
> > On Sat, 6 Nov 1999, Walter Keeler wrote:
> > 
> > > Here's a basic question:
> > > 
> > > What happens when you unplug the serial cable and then power up the IPX?
> > > Does it spin up and make disk access noises?
> > 
> > Unplugged cable, powered on IPX. Disk spins up.
> > 
> > > If so, it sure sounds like a cabling issue of some sort.
> > > 
> > > It would make the debugging job a whole lot easier to fire up the IPX with
> > > a head, if only to make sure it runs properly to begin with.
> > 
> > Adding a head would put me back about $150 unless I could find a less
> > expensive supplier for the keyboard and video converters, and then I
> > wouldn't need serial console.
> > 
> > Maybe that would be a better track?
> > 
> > Sun sells a ps2 keyboard and mouse converter for $75, and Blackbox has a
> > 13W3/VGA converter for about $45. I would love a head on this thing if it
> > wouldn't be quite so expensive.
> > 
> > Oh, and I have no desk/counter/shelf space for a second keyboard and
> > mouse at this time.
> > 
> > However, I did finally chase up a pinout for the serial port, and I might
> > have ended up with either the wrong cable (might need a modem cable
> > instead of a printer cable) or I might need a straight instead of a null
> > modem cable. Unfortunately I wont be able to test any of those for the
> > next two or three days.