Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 23:52:32 +0200 From: Bernd Walter <ticso@cicely5.cicely.de> To: Thomas Pornin <pornin@bolet.org> Cc: alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AXPpci33 <-> Sparc sun4c serial cable Message-ID: <20020903215232.GC82356@cicely5.cicely.de> In-Reply-To: <20020903190239.A48033@gnah.bolet.org> References: <20020903190239.A48033@gnah.bolet.org>
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On Tue, Sep 03, 2002 at 07:02:40PM +0200, Thomas Pornin wrote: > Hello, > > I have at home an AXPpci33 machine running happily FreeBSD-4.6. This is > a standard NoName board, with some PCI slots, onboard SCSI, a 166 MHz > cpu (21066 I believe) and 32 MBytes of ram. The board features a serial > port, which seems to be recognized by FreeBSD: > > sio0: configured irq 4 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0 > sio0 at port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 on isa0 > sio0: type 16550A > sio0: interrupting at ISA irq 4 > sio1: reserved for low-level i/o If sio0 is your console and you want to use sio1 you have to remove the debug flags on sio1. > I shall soon acquire an old IPC Sun SparcStation. Those stations can > use a serial console, and are actually supposed to switch to a serial > console in the absence of any keyboard (there might be a switch on the > board but that's not a problem). If I remember correctly, the DB25 > connector is female on those stations, and it is possible that the pin > layout is non-standard. Take a gender changer and you get the same pinout as on a PC DB-25. > What I would like to do is connecting the serial ports of the Alpha > and the Sparc machines so that I could control the Sparc console from > a shell on the Alpha machine. I have two questions: > > ** What software should I use on the Alpha box ? I know there exists > some program called "minicom", which has a FreeBSD port, that might > be adequate. But is this the standard solution ? I prefer tip, but minicom will also do. > ** What is the layout of the serial cable to use ? I suspect that there > are non-standard serial ports on some Alpha machines for the following For console on FreeBSD and Suns a 3 wire null-modem cable will do. For the general use you want a fully connected null-modem which also handles DCD and DSR which many cheap cables don't do. I don't remember the pinout on the NoName board - I can find out if you need to know. But I can say for shure that pinout is different to the pinout used in most PCs! > reason: I once had a Multia, which is basically a NoName board in a Multias are different in many aspects - they only share the same CPU family and therefor the same embedded chipset which make them very similar from the software standpoint. > small box. That Multia could use a vt220 as console when no keyboard The SRM console isn't requiring a special terminal type - I once used an old ADM3A (a real Lear Siegler from 1980). > was connected. A simple null-modem cable worked (those cables sold as > "doom-cable", with a DB9 and a DB25 at each end). I tried the same > setting on my current Alpha machine, and it did not work. What do you mean with did not work? > Some sort of reference on serial cables would be much appreciated. > There is some info on: > http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/Hardware/Misc/serial.html > but it is only partial. I usually build my cables myself just because I don't have the time to search for the right one. -- B.Walter COSMO-Project http://www.cosmo-project.de ticso@cicely.de Usergroup info@cosmo-project.de To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message
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