[rescue] Serial console on IBM RS/6000 250?

[Todd Carson]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 12:09:52 -0600
"Jonathan C. Patschke" <jp at celestrion.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Todd Carson wrote:
> 
> > No. I've tried a Sun monitor and a VGA monitor with an adapter,
> > neither display anything. I saw on the list archives that the
> > pinouts are different between Sun and IBM, so I'm assuming that
> > nothing but an IBM monitor, or the right adapter, is going to work.
> 
> An SGI monitor on my 250 does the right thing.  The monitor just needs
> to be sync-on-green and not do strange things to the sense pins.



> 
> > So I'll definitely be needing AIX install media, then? Or are there
> > any floppy images or the like available online that can reset the
> > console?
> 
> AIX 4.3.3 is six CDs[0].  I don't think you'll be wanting to install
> via floppy. :)

I think it already has AIX installed; I was just wondering if there were any floppy images that could get me far enough to reset the console.

> 
> > Yeah, the case is already off. So I guess I'll try to get some AIX
> > media from eBay and try to bypass the lock. Thanks for your help.
> 
> You will also need an IBM SCSI CD-ROM drive.  There aren't too many
> models that a 250 will talk to.  Unfortunately, I don't have that
> magical drive, so I'll be RIPLing[1] mine off the 370 for the
> installation.

Yeah, I was afraid of that. I don't have an IBM CD-ROM; my only external CD-ROM drives are a Sun (Sony) and a Panasonic. Do they use bootp/tftp to netboot (or something else that could be set up on Solaris/HP-UX/*BSD), or is it a completely proprietary protocol?