The nameplate of the soon-to-be terminal...
The nameplate of the soon-to-be terminal...
Yep, I said null modem. Essentially, all this is is what happens when you connect two computers via serial ports with a special cable. The two computers are connected in the same way that two computers communicating over a phone line would communicate, with the exception that there are no modems involved, hence the name null modem.
We also take advantage of the fact that, in the olden days of BBSs, when you connected to a BBS, the software you used had to do some form of terminal emulation. Not surprisingly, since the terminal emulator communicates essentially through the serial line, it's possible to use many of these pieces of software on a UNIX (or Linux) machine as a serial-line terminal.
From this point on, it's pretty simple. My AMD PC has a 9-pin serial connector, and my Tandy has a 25-pin connector. I just happen to have an old cable with a 9-pin on one end and a 25-pin on the other. Normally, one would make a cable for this purpose, but I'm lazy and used a converter I found at Staples for around $5US (See below.)
About the only thing left to mention is /etc/inittab. You'll need to edit this to use the terminal as a normal login terminal. This is all I added:
7:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty ttyS0 9600 The "9600" was necessary because, hey, that Tandy port is slow. We're stuck with 9600 baud and below. :^} The only thing to remember on the Tandy side is that it should be set to 8 bits, 9600 baud, no flow control. Your mileage may vary. See the serial port and text terminal HOWTOs if you have any problems. So, I bet you're left with a burning question: "What's the point???" Well, now I have a separate, and I mean physically separate terminal that I can do the following with:
