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[RetroHacker]

Originally Posted by Chad Haurisi

Retro hacker, what do you have those terminals hooked up to? I'm working on a project with a thrift-store IBM pentium running Linux which can connect to the internet...this will then serve some of my terminals and apple computers, etc. with information.

I've got terminals hooked up to everything My main PC has a couple terminals hooked up to it, as do a couple other PC/Clone systems around here. A couple machines, like my RS/6000, and the clone I use as a webserver don't even have video cards, just terminals. My Apple IIe is connected to a PC through the serial line, and with Kermit and other terminal programs, I can do just about everything from the Apple. Download a file with Lynx to the PC, copy it into a RAM disk on the Apple, then reboot the Apple with a disk utility and copy the disk image from RAM onto a floppy.

Adding a terminal to a Linux machine easy. Just add a line to your /etc/inittab file that sets up getty to listen on the port. Something like :

T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 9600 att4410

Will set up /dev/ttyS0 to talk to an AT&T terminal, at 9600 baud.

T1:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS1 19200 vt100

Will set up /dev/ttyS1 to talk to a DEC VT100 terminal at 19200 baud.

Just make sure you have the proper terminal definitions set up so that Linux knows how to talk to your terminal. VT100 should always be there, and most common ones like Wyse and the ADM3A are probably already there, more unusual entries will have to be added to the terminfo database from the master one available online.

Physical connection of the terminal is also pretty straightforward, just wire up a null modem cable to go from the nine pin port on the back of the clone to the (probably 25 pin) port on the terminal. Some terminals used male connectors, others used female, it's just a matter of what your terminal uses. Linux also supports more than just the two built-in serial ports on the average clone motherboard. You can also use PCI and ISA serial cards, and those USB to serial converters.

I love Linux.

-Ian