Very Computer

by **A.I. van Berke** » Sat, 07 Mar 1998 04:00:00

Hello,

I have been playing around with a thought for a while now and would like
some opinions on it.

At home, I still have an old 8088 computer with a 20 Mb harddisk and a
hercules screen.
It would be nice if I could connect this to my linux box as a dumb
terminal.
However, how do I go about doing this? I do not know a linux version that
will run on an 8088. Could I setup a sort of telnet connection from dos 3.2
or could I setup linux to regard the xt as an additional display and input
device (if so, how?).

Has anyone tried something like this before or is it impossible?

Regards,

Arij van Berkel.

by **Frank Sweetse** » Sat, 07 Mar 1998 04:00:00

Quote:> I have been playing around with a thought for a while now and would like
> some opinions on it. At home, I still have an old 8088 computer with a
> 20 Mb harddisk and a hercules screen. It would be nice if I could
> connect this to my linux box as a dumb terminal. However, how do I go
> about doing this? I do not know a linux version that will run on an
> 8088. Could I setup a sort of telnet connection from dos 3.2 or could I
> setup linux to regard the xt as an additional display and input device
> (if so, how?).

perfectly doable... on the linux machine, start up a getty on one of the
serial ports. install DOS on the XT, and fire up a terminal program, like
kermit. hook them up via a null modem cable, and you've got a login! this
is described in more detail in the serial howto at
http://www.veryComputer.com/

--
Frank Sweetser rasmusin at wpi.edu fsweetser at blee.net | PGP key available
paramount.res.wpi.net RH 5.0 kernel 2.0.33/2.1.89p5 i586 | at public servers
"I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,
carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old *ia,
I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun."
-- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H

by **Alexander Vi** » Sat, 07 Mar 1998 04:00:00

a) You can't run Linux on 8088
b) You don't need it. DOS with any terminal emulator will be OK.
Take any terminal emulator that supports VT100 or VT102 and enjoy.

by **Eric Lee Gre** » Sat, 07 Mar 1998 04:00:00

Quote:>At home, I still have an old 8088 computer with a 20 Mb harddisk and a
>hercules screen.
>It would be nice if I could connect this to my linux box as a dumb
>terminal.

Fine. Get qvt374.zip from www.shareware.com, put it on a diskette and
carry it to the old dos box, and hack away. qvt374 is QVT Term, one of
the best VT100 emulators I've found for plain old DOS serial-line use.
It even handles the 'printer passthrough' part of VT100 emulation,
which every single other VT100 emulator I've encountered flubs on.
Use a null modem cable to connect the serial port of the dos box to
the serial port on your Linux box. Note that you MAY need to get an
extra serial port for your Linux box if you're out of serial ports
(e.g., if you have 2 ports and have a mouse and modem hooked to
both). These are pretty cheap ($10-$30 U.S.), but make sure it's one
that allows the serial port to be set at interrupt 2 or interrupt 5 so
that it won't conflict with the built-in serial ports.

Note that an old 8088 will only do 9600 baud, so don't expect it to be fast!

Quote:>or could I setup linux to regard the xt as an additional display and input
>device (if so, how?).

In /etc/inittab, add the following line:
z1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty ttyS1 DT9600 vt100

Then type "telinit q" at a root prompt to inform Linux that you've changed
/etc/inittab.

You don't have to do 'telinit q' after a reboot because the 'inittab' is also
read at bootup.

If you are using a different serial port (rather than COM2) just set up that
serial port (see the Serial HOWTO) and then change that ttyS1 to something
else.

Quote:>Has anyone tried something like this before or is it impossible?

We regularly use old obsolete DOS machines as terminals for our school
administration systems.

Note: the 'screen' program is a nice program for 'multitasking' on that
DOS machine (do a 'man screen' for more information). Do note, however, that
it is never going to be fast at 9600 baud. But 9600 baud is all those old
serial ports can handle.

--

Systems Specialist Educational Administration Solutions
"We believe Windows 95 is a walking antitrust violation" -- Bryan Sparks

by **John Gira** » Sat, 07 Mar 1998 04:00:00

: a) You can't run Linux on 8088
: b) You don't need it. DOS with any terminal emulator will be OK.
: Take any terminal emulator that supports VT100 or VT102 and enjoy.

For sake of completeness, if you *are* dead-set against DOS,
Minix and minicom should also accomplish what you need. But so
will OpenDOS & MS-Kermit, which will fit on a single 360k floopy.

jg

--
"don't listen when you're told about the best days in your life Spirit of
a useless old expression, it means passing time until you die." the West
/\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\/

by **Thomas Muldowne** » Sat, 07 Mar 1998 04:00:00

Yup, works great like that. I run a terminal off of my box, so that my
brother can use the computer at the same time. If you have any
questions just ask.

--Thomas Muldowney

> > I have been playing around with a thought for a while now and would like
> > some opinions on it. At home, I still have an old 8088 computer with a
> > 20 Mb harddisk and a hercules screen. It would be nice if I could
> > connect this to my linux box as a dumb terminal. However, how do I go
> > about doing this? I do not know a linux version that will run on an
> > 8088. Could I setup a sort of telnet connection from dos 3.2 or could I
> > setup linux to regard the xt as an additional display and input device
> > (if so, how?).

> perfectly doable... on the linux machine, start up a getty on one of the
> serial ports. install DOS on the XT, and fire up a terminal program, like
> kermit. hook them up via a null modem cable, and you've got a login! this
> is described in more detail in the serial howto at
> http://www.veryComputer.com/

> --
> Frank Sweetser rasmusin at wpi.edu fsweetser at blee.net | PGP key available
> paramount.res.wpi.net RH 5.0 kernel 2.0.33/2.1.89p5 i586 | at public servers
> "I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,
> carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old *ia,
> I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun."
> -- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H

vcard.vcf
< 1K Download

by **Gonzalo A. Diethe** » Sat, 07 Mar 1998 04:00:00

> a) You can't run Linux on 8088

But you can. Check out ELKS (Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset). These guys
are crazy, er, motivated enough to port Linux to 8086 and 80286. Check
it out at their home page, http://www.uk.linux.org/Linux8086.html.

Quote:> b) You don't need it. DOS with any terminal emulator will be OK.
> Take any terminal emulator that supports VT100 or VT102 and enjoy.

This is true, too.

--
Gonzalo Diethelm # Windows 95: n. 32-bit extensions and a graphical shell for

=Debian Linux= # coded for a 4-bit microprocessor, written by a 2-bit
www.debian.org # company that can't stand for 1 bit of competition.

by **Chris Water** » Wed, 11 Mar 1998 04:00:00

Quote:> At home, I still have an old 8088 computer with a 20 Mb harddisk and
> a hercules screen. It would be nice if I could connect this to my
> linux box as a dumb terminal.

Easy enough: install a dumb terminal emulator on it. You don't
actually need to use Linux for this -- there are a number of terminal
emulators that run under, e.g. DOS. But if you want to avoid that,
you may need to look into the Elks project (I think it's called). Any
major Linux website should have pointers. I think that might be
overkill but it should work. Or maybe you can find an old copy of
Minix-86. If you want a free solution, you might be able to use
something like FreeDOS + C-Kermit. (FreeDOS seems pretty beta to me,
but it might work well enough for this.)

Quote:> However, how do I go about doing this? I do not know a linux version that
> will run on an 8088. Could I setup a sort of telnet connection from dos 3.2
> or could I setup linux to regard the xt as an additional display and input
> device (if so, how?).

Elks is (I think) an 8088-based Linux. But I'm not sure how complete
or how stable it is. And it's probably overkill for a dumb terminal.
DOS (MS/DR/Free) is almost overkill, but probably gives you the most
options. There *are* TCP/IP stacks available for DOS, so you could
set it up to telnet in, but again, that may be overkill. You can
connect the two computers through the serial ports, and run a simple
terminal emulator like C-Kermit or {Commo} or Telix. You'll probably
need a null-modem connector. There's probably more information
available in the Linux HOW-TOs.
--
Chris Waters | Bill Gates: "We need room to innovate!"

www.dsp.net/xtifr/ (web) |

Very Computer

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?

XT as dumb terminal (possible)?