On 03/ 9/16 06:31 PM, WBSTClarke wrote:

On Monday, 28 July 2014 20:20:02 UTC+1, Douglas Dunn wrote:

I have two RS/6000 machines that I got from my university, when they were being thrown out. They are a 390 and 39H. I'm not very experienced with AIX, although I know a fair amount about OS/2 and eCS.

So, since they came out of a storage closet, all passwords, IP addresses, and state of the drives/AIX install is all unknown. There is no HMC, nor a dumb terminal present. I do have an older laptop with a serial port, a M/M db25 gender adapter, one

of those "db25 to db9" adapters, and various null modem adapters. Currently both systems boot as far as IPL code 261, "No display adapter detected". I have several MCA cards: Serial DB-9, with 2 ports, token ring + RJ-45, and a pair of ESCON cards and a
cable. Unfortunately, no MCA video card. Also I have the physical keys for both systems, and a SCSI internal CD-drive (apple branded) and a generic internal SCSI tape drive.

I have a few questions from anybody who has experience with the ins and outs of these machines. My goal is to get both systems fully running and configured with the hardware I listed, and to use the old laptop as a terminal.

1) How can I bypass the "no display" error, allowing the machine to keep booting?
2) What combination of RS-232 adapters is known to work?
3) What software is needed on the laptop side? Just "cat /dev/ttyS0", or what?
4) Will the machines still come up to some kind of prompt on the terminal, even if the drives are dead/blank?
5) I'd want to install a new copy of AIX (for experience and practice!), what version is recommended - does IBM offer free version of legacy releases?
6) Will I be able to use the ESCON cards to link the systems?
7) Any other advice on my setup?

Thanks in advance!

The guys have answered most question for you already. As Michael Kraemer said AIX 5.1 ML9 is the latest level that supports MCA bus RS/6000s. eMail me if you want to know or get more info.

ESCON is a mainframe *channel* connection adapter and I may have MCA bus flavour here, with the appropriate fibre-optic cables, for eventual hooking up to my PCI bus based S/390 Multiprise 3000 (7060-H50). An ESCON Director may be necessary for

interlinking more than two ESCON equipped systems. Not easy to find cheaply.

Anyway, drop me an email if you'd like.

Ah you floated this up to the top so I responded too but just saw the
date :). Hopefully the original poster got things figured out!

Regards,
Kevin

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 07/28/14 12:20 PM, Douglas Dunn wrote:

I have two RS/6000 machines that I got from my university, when they were being thrown out. They are a 390 and 39H. I'm not very experienced with AIX, although I know a fair amount about OS/2 and eCS.

So, since they came out of a storage closet, all passwords, IP addresses, and state of the drives/AIX install is all unknown. There is no HMC, nor a dumb terminal present. I do have an older laptop with a serial port, a M/M db25 gender adapter, one of

those "db25 to db9" adapters, and various null modem adapters. Currently both systems boot as far as IPL code 261, "No display adapter detected". I have several MCA cards: Serial DB-9, with 2 ports, token ring + RJ-45, and a pair of ESCON cards and a
cable. Unfortunately, no MCA video card. Also I have the physical keys for both systems, and a SCSI internal CD-drive (apple branded) and a generic internal SCSI tape drive.

I have a few questions from anybody who has experience with the ins and outs of these machines. My goal is to get both systems fully running and configured with the hardware I listed, and to use the old laptop as a terminal.

1) How can I bypass the "no display" error, allowing the machine to keep booting?
2) What combination of RS-232 adapters is known to work?
3) What software is needed on the laptop side? Just "cat /dev/ttyS0", or what?
4) Will the machines still come up to some kind of prompt on the terminal, even if the drives are dead/blank?
5) I'd want to install a new copy of AIX (for experience and practice!), what version is recommended - does IBM offer free version of legacy releases?
6) Will I be able to use the ESCON cards to link the systems?
7) Any other advice on my setup?

Thanks in advance!

You'll want to spend some time on my site, http://ps-2.kev009.com/. In particular, on these old machines getting console seems trickier than it
really is until you've done it before http://ps-2.kev009.com/rs6000/serialconsole.html will help.

Generally you wont get anything on the console until you are booting an
HD, Floppy, Tape, CD, network, etc. I think the only ROM console is for configuring netboot and there is a special key combo that you have to
know to see that. http://ps-2.kev009.com/rs6000/files/CD51025.iso is
the 5.1 bootable diagnostics which should let you gauge the machines functionality while you obtain AIX.

As far as AIX, those models are pretty versatile. 4.3.3 will be
slightly snappier, but 5.1 will run and maybe a bit easier to port
software to.

I'd be interested in your ESCON cards because I own a mainframe. They
aren't very useful outside of that. Unlike the Bus and Tag cards which
are either a host or a target, the ESCON adapter can be used in either
mode. So for instance you could hook up a mainframe tape drive to the
RS/6000 without owning a mainframe. http://ps-2.kev009.com/rsinfo/escon.htm

Regards,
Kevin

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, 28 July 2014 20:20:02 UTC+1, Douglas Dunn wrote:

I have two RS/6000 machines that I got from my university, when they were being thrown out. They are a 390 and 39H. I'm not very experienced with AIX, although I know a fair amount about OS/2 and eCS.

So, since they came out of a storage closet, all passwords, IP addresses, and state of the drives/AIX install is all unknown. There is no HMC, nor a dumb terminal present. I do have an older laptop with a serial port, a M/M db25 gender adapter, one of

those "db25 to db9" adapters, and various null modem adapters. Currently both systems boot as far as IPL code 261, "No display adapter detected". I have several MCA cards: Serial DB-9, with 2 ports, token ring + RJ-45, and a pair of ESCON cards and a
cable. Unfortunately, no MCA video card. Also I have the physical keys for both systems, and a SCSI internal CD-drive (apple branded) and a generic internal SCSI tape drive.

I have a few questions from anybody who has experience with the ins and outs of these machines. My goal is to get both systems fully running and configured with the hardware I listed, and to use the old laptop as a terminal.

1) How can I bypass the "no display" error, allowing the machine to keep booting?
2) What combination of RS-232 adapters is known to work?
3) What software is needed on the laptop side? Just "cat /dev/ttyS0", or what?
4) Will the machines still come up to some kind of prompt on the terminal, even if the drives are dead/blank?
5) I'd want to install a new copy of AIX (for experience and practice!), what version is recommended - does IBM offer free version of legacy releases?
6) Will I be able to use the ESCON cards to link the systems?
7) Any other advice on my setup?

Thanks in advance!

The guys have answered most question for you already. As Michael Kraemer said AIX 5.1 ML9 is the latest level that supports MCA bus RS/6000s. eMail me if you want to know or get more info.

ESCON is a mainframe *channel* connection adapter and I may have MCA bus flavour here, with the appropriate fibre-optic cables, for eventual hooking up to my PCI bus based S/390 Multiprise 3000 (7060-H50). An ESCON Director may be necessary for
interlinking more than two ESCON equipped systems. Not easy to find cheaply.

Anyway, drop me an email if you'd like.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)