Very Computer

I have this model running AIX.  I can access it via
ethernet or serial.  I plugged a VGA monitor and
keyboard and get a raster but nothing else.  The
keyboard shift lights flash but otherwise the keyboard
doesn't seem to do anything.

There is a board with a 9 pin connector in the first
slot - function unknown.

How can I get the keyboard/screen working?  One of my
customers is having problems that I can't replicate
without the keyboard working.

--

 Widget need a Brain Drain?  Check out Industrial ZMODEM(Tm)
   Omen Technology Inc      "The High Reliability Software"
10255 NW Old Cornelius Pass Portland OR 97231     503-614-0430

The 220 is an MCA machine.  MCA machines needed special keyboards
(the right ALT key is marked AltGr), they don't work well with
standard PC keyboards.

Not getting smoke is just a bonus.

Quote:> There is a board with a 9 pin connector in the first
> slot - function unknown.

Can't remember, sorry.

Quote:> How can I get the keyboard/screen working?  One of my
> customers is having problems that I can't replicate
> without the keyboard working.

RS6K keyboard.
Aparently any 3-button mouse will work (even saw a
logitech trackman marble on a 250).

--
Doing AIX support was the most monty-pythonesque
activity available at the time.

        Actually, if it's been booted w/o either KB or rodent, there's
        a good chance the LFT terminal hasn't been configured.

        With the KB et al plugged in, run "cfgmgr" and see if you get
        any interesting output.  (You'll need to do this as root.)

        Of course, you can just try to do a service mode boot with
        the display adapter and stuff plugged in.

        Now for the REALLY BAD news.  If you're running AIX 4 (rather
        than, for instance, 3.2.5) there is a good chance that the
        display adapter itself has no supporting device drivers;  If
        you're running 4.3+, this probability reaches damn close to
        unity.

        They're ok when run "headless", BTW.

Quote:>Not getting smoke is just a bonus.

        Sounds about right.

Quote:>> There is a board with a 9 pin connector in the first
>> slot - function unknown.
>Can't remember, sorry.

        Highest probability for a 9pin female is that it's a Token
        Ring LAN adapter, especially if it's got a "16/4" sticker
        on it.  If it's got two LEDs (yellow+green) it's one that's
        a little more willing to let you know what it's doing.

        Needless to say, this card is (most likely) s*to you.

Quote:>> How can I get the keyboard/screen working?  One of my
>> customers is having problems that I can't replicate
>> without the keyboard working.
>RS6K keyboard.
>Aparently any 3-button mouse will work (even saw a
>logitech trackman marble on a 250).

        I've seen RS/6000s (MCA variety) work with some regular PC type
        keyboards;  My main problem is that you can't have a PC and an
        RS6K (or RSPC or CHRP) on the same KVM switch since there's
        some kind of download of scancodes to the keyboard that just
        drove me crazy.

        Once again, a lot depends upon the version of AIX and whether
        it'll drive the display adapter card.

--

 - As a SysAdmin, yes, I CAN read your e-mail, but I DON'T get that bored!
   Disclaimer:  All opinions expressed above are those of John R. Campbell
                alone and are seriously unlikely to reflect the opinions of
                his employer(s) or lackeys thereof.  Anyone who says
                differently is itching for a fight!

Quote:> I have this model running AIX.  I can access it via
> ethernet or serial.  I plugged a VGA monitor and
> keyboard and get a raster but nothing else.  The
> keyboard shift lights flash but otherwise the keyboard
> doesn't seem to do anything.

Are you by any chance running AIX 3.2.x or 4.1? These versions had in
combination with older machines (2xx, 3x0, 5x0) problems with generic
Keyboards.

Quote:> There is a board with a 9 pin connector in the first
> slot - function unknown.

DB9, female? Would be a Tokenring Card.

Quote:> How can I get the keyboard/screen working?

Buy a IBM "RS/6000" Keyboard (the ones with the built in Speaker) or
upgrade the system to AIX 4.3.x

                Martin.
--
BOFH excuse of the day:
  We're upgrading /dev/null

It's this job you know ?  All my RS6K's have a token ring card. :-)

--
Doing AIX support was the most monty-pythonesque
activity available at the time.

        Yeah, I know, I've seen your comments elsewhere.  *SIGH*

        In cutting over from a TokenRing to an Ethernet campus (I
        once wrote to Stan Kelly-Bootle w/ his "Books for people with
        low self-esteem" the title of "Ethernet for the Indecisive"
        which he printed-  right below "Emacs for the Emasculated")
        my one server "closet" now has a 43P-140 acting as a router-
        all so that I can support three network segments.  I then
        arranged to scroung old 8230's (the electronic MAU) from the
        campus we were leaving to replace my 8228 MAUs (YAY!).

        There was just no margin in upgrading some of the Babbage
        era (i.e. Steam Operated) RS/6000s to Ethernet.

        Though, I must admit that NetFinickies running Linux are
        _much_ happier with Ethernet instead of TokenRing.

        Well, at least the Sun/HP boxes I have are happy on EtherNet.

        What's amazing is that it all works.  Of course, since I own
        the full Class-C and the DNS servers AND THE ROUTER there's
        more "* bits" I can get away with.

        It bugs me that I was so far off on the 7011-250 issues though.
        I've got a pair (well, only one still works) and I did a RAM
        upgrade 3 years ago on one of 'em (the one with the dead disk
        drive) and that only pushed the puppy up to 64MB.

        Though I've heard horror stories about _some_ of the machines'
        integrated SCSI adapter being unable to handle drives bigger
        than 2G (even the 2.1G) though this is reputed to be a certainty
        on the -220 and -230 systems.

        And I've had enough related machines lose their sanity (i.e.
        their display adapters) as we've progressed in AIX levels.

        I may be a "Speaker to Machines" (obscure Ringworld reference)
        but I'm not as hot talking to humans...

--

 - As a SysAdmin, yes, I CAN read your e-mail, but I DON'T get that bored!
   Disclaimer:  All opinions expressed above are those of John R. Campbell
                alone and are seriously unlikely to reflect the opinions of
                his employer(s) or lackeys thereof.  Anyone who says
                differently is itching for a fight!

Is there a cheap way to get Aix 4.3 or newer to recognize
the screen and keyboard on the -220?

Also, shouldn't there be a way to get the bootstrap
monitor to use these devices?  during powerup the
keyboard loghts flash and a white raster appears
on a monitor connected to the VGA port - so the
hardware seems to be working.

--

 Widget need a Brain Drain?  Check out Industrial ZMODEM(Tm)
   Omen Technology Inc      "The High Reliability Software"
10255 NW Old Cornelius Pass Portland OR 97231     503-614-0430

Quote:> Is there a cheap way to get Aix 4.3 or newer to recognize
> the screen and keyboard on the -220?

You _may_ have luck using Drivers from an older AIX Version.

Quote:> Also, shouldn't there be a way to get the bootstrap
> monitor to use these devices?  during powerup the
> keyboard loghts flash and a white raster appears
> on a monitor connected to the VGA port - so the
> hardware seems to be working.

No. AIX 4.3 can't communicate with the Framebuffer because it's missing the
VPD and Microcode. The Raster you're seeing is generated by the Hardware,
not by AIX.

                        Martin.

--
BOFH excuse of the day:
  We're upgrading /dev/null

        Assuming installp doesn't *on it.  For some of these
        puppies you've gotta way back to before 4.2.1-  not a
        pretty thought.

        As it is, I still have machines running 4.2.1 in my server
        closet-  simply because the machines are antiques.

        For a -220 (related in performance to an M20 I once had on
        my desk years ago) I would probably cap the OS at 4.2.1
        simply through laziness and run it w/ a serial console
        (using network connectivity for everything else).  While
        the machine can accomodate up to 64MB (assuming I haven't
        gotten this wrong again, I've had some -230 floating about
        and got 'em confused w/ -250s) that pretty small for 5.1L
        though adequate (depending upon what you're doing) for
        4.3.3.

        Additionally, even if you don't use the internal display
        you can still take advantage of VNC.

Quote:>> Also, shouldn't there be a way to get the bootstrap
>> monitor to use these devices?  during powerup the
>> keyboard loghts flash and a white raster appears
>> on a monitor connected to the VGA port - so the
>> hardware seems to be working.

>No. AIX 4.3 can't communicate with the Framebuffer because it's missing the
>VPD and Microcode. The Raster you're seeing is generated by the Hardware,
>not by AIX.

        I once took the Advanced SysAdmin class for AIX 4.3 (and now hold
        a certification for both sysadmin and system support) and learned
        that AIX "boots funny".

        The easiest way to explain it is...

                To boot up an AIX system, you first have to boot AIX,
                which will then boot AIX again, and finishes by booting
                the "live" AIX.

        Of course, this is how AIX handles the virtualization of the
        disk farm and the discovery you see every time you do an
        lsdev -C ...

        (I'm so lazy, though-  instead of using the lsdev arg list to
        select what I'm interested in looking at, I grep for something
        I'm interested in.  For instance, I like to see all my SCSI
        devices by doing an "lsdev -C | grep ," which works on most
        machines (excepting the ancient -320 and a few others).)

--

 - As a SysAdmin, yes, I CAN read your e-mail, but I DON'T get that bored!
   Disclaimer:  All opinions expressed above are those of John R. Campbell
                alone and are seriously unlikely to reflect the opinions of
                his employer(s) or lackeys thereof.  Anyone who says
                differently is itching for a fight!

I haven't had any trouble with the olympic card.

Quote:>         What's amazing is that it all works.  Of course, since I own
>         the full Class-C and the DNS servers AND THE ROUTER there's
>         more "* bits" I can get away with.

"Owning" the essential parts of the network makes for very smooth running.

Quote:>         Though I've heard horror stories about _some_ of the machines'
>         integrated SCSI adapter being unable to handle drives bigger
>         than 2G (even the 2.1G) though this is reputed to be a certainty
>         on the -220 and -230 systems.

I have a *very hazy* memory of an ECA to deal with that issue.

My 220 desn't have that problem.  It has 2x200MB of disk which is enough to run
DNS for 1200 users. (two direct zones and nine reverses).

Never above 5% CPU.

Quote:>         And I've had enough related machines lose their sanity (i.e.
>         their display adapters) as we've progressed in AIX levels.

The first adapter I saw go down that particular drain brought tears to my eyes.

It was a Sabine, the 24bit 3D card - If you can call a card to something that
chews up 3 slots.

Quote:>         I may be a "Speaker to Machines" (obscure Ringworld reference)
>         but I'm not as hot talking to humans...

Speaker to Animals ?

--
Doing AIX support was the most monty-pythonesque
activity available at the time.

A forced install should be sufficient, alternatively one may extract the
apropriate files by hand.

Quote:>         For some of these
>        puppies you've gotta way back to before 4.2.1-  not a
>        pretty thought.

Uh, 3.2.5 wasn't _that_ bad... I have 3.2.5.1-02 running on my -C10.

Quote:>        As it is, I still have machines running 4.2.1 in my server
>        closet-  simply because the machines are antiques.

:-)

Quote:>        For a -220 (related in performance to an M20 I once had on
>        my desk years ago) I would probably cap the OS at 4.2.1
>        simply through laziness and run it w/ a serial console
>        (using network connectivity for everything else).  While
>        the machine can accomodate up to 64MB (assuming I haven't
>        gotten this wrong again, I've had some -230 floating about
>        and got 'em confused w/ -250s) that pretty small for 5.1L
>        though adequate (depending upon what you're doing) for
>        4.3.3.

64 MB is right for the M20... Had one a few years ago.

Quote:>        Additionally, even if you don't use the internal display
>        you can still take advantage of VNC.

But VNC is slow, buggy and one big security hole. It's ok for home use
but I'd never install it on a machine sitting in a larger network or
connected directly to the internet.

Quote:>        I once took the Advanced SysAdmin class for AIX 4.3 (and now hold
>        a certification for both sysadmin and system support) and learned
>        that AIX "boots funny".

Yeah, I know... :-)
But that is just one of the few oddities AIX provides... ODM is another
funny thing. I once tried to explain it to a Leenucks guy. I gave up
after a few hours -- he just didn't understand :-}

                Martin.
--
BOFH excuse of the day:
  We're upgrading /dev/null

He should, he has a mettric load of sparse configuration files to do stuff
like assigning a specific usb driver to a specific usb device (by device id).

It's just spread all over the place.

--
Doing AIX support was the most monty-pythonesque
activity available at the time.

        There are advantages and disadvantages to the ODM;  It's a
        predecessor to the "registry" after all.

        My biggest problem is that you're encouraged to insert routes
        into it and it's not flexible enough to cope with fine-tuning
        the order of route presentation, especially when you're using
        some of the funky AIX Networking enhancements.

        So I end up having to build an /etc/rc.routes file (so named
        so people can find it-  assuming they're paranoid enough) to
        get around stuff like this.

        I must admit, though, that there are times and places where
        the ODM is WAY better than a scattered set of flat files-
        though I must admit that Linux is not quite as confusing as
        Solaris in the way some of 'em work (and usually the Linux
        distributors tend to leave comments in the files so you've
        got some hints when you find 'em-  except RedHat's _EMPTY_
        /etc/modules.conf file).

        It all comes down to "knowing" the system.  Admittedly, AIX
        management is weird stuff to everybody else but it's a matter
        of what you know about a particular system.

        Since I do both AIX and Linux stuff (my DNS servers are Linux)
        it gets more interesting, but at least I don't go stale on
        either.

--

 - As a SysAdmin, yes, I CAN read your e-mail, but I DON'T get that bored!
   Disclaimer:  All opinions expressed above are those of John R. Campbell
                alone and are seriously unlikely to reflect the opinions of
                his employer(s) or lackeys thereof.  Anyone who says
                differently is itching for a fight!