🚀 go-pugleaf

bloatman@ix.netcom.com (Bruce Loatman) writes:

>I hope this is the right group,if not please forgive me.

This is the *Australian* sun discussion group, so perhaps it's a little
inappropriate considering you're in the US. Not to worry though.

There are world-wide Sun discussion groups in the comp.sys.sun.xxx category:

 - comp.sys.sun.admin for Sun system administration discussion
 - comp.sys.sun.announce for announcements of products, etc.
 - comp.sys.sun.apps for discussion about applications
 - comp.sys.sun.hardware for hardware-related discussion
 - comp.sys.sun.misc for miscellaneous Sun-specific topics
 - comp.sys.sun.wanted which is sort of Sun-specific trading news group

There's also alt.sys.sun, and of course aus.computers.sun.

You can keep this article as a guide to which newsgroup is appropriate 
for any other queries, etc. you may like to post in the future.

>Any way can someone help? I need to know what software or hardware may 
>be needed etc etc etc. 

Ok, assuming you don't yet have the monitor it's not very easy to use the Sun
from your PC, since you need to get the sun to run up a login session on one
of it's serial ports (which is fairly simple once you have a monitor and get
access to the system console directly, however then you won't need to use 
a PC as a terminal!).

To do this you have to edit at least one file on the Sun (/etc/ttytab) to 
tell the Sun to run a process called 'getty' looking at the relevant serial
port for changes to handshaking line status (this will require a reboot 
after you've edited the file to get it to work), and you'll also need 
to get a suitable cable.

I don't know whether the serial ports on your machine are 25 pin or 9 pin,
but if they're 25 pin you should be able to use a ready-made cable to 
plug the two machines together. Don't get a cable suited for a modem though,
since it will have the signal pins wired 'straight through' (Txd to Txd, 
Rxd to Rxd, DCD to DCD, etc.), whereas to connect two computers together you
need a cable that has 'crossed pairs' (Txd to Rxd, Rxd to Txd, DCD to 
DTR, etc.). 

Keep hassling your friend for a monitor, since without it you can't do very
much with the machine at all unfortunately. I have a 3/60 and 3/80 here, and
it is possible to get the machines to take *input* from a serial port (simply
by not plugging in the keyboard/mouse before powering up), but console 
*output* always gets sent to whatever the installed hardware display device
is. At least that's how it is on my machines.

Regards,

Craig.


-- 
      Craig Dewick, Passenger Train Driver residing in Sydney, Australia.
       Please send email to craig@zeta.org.au OR craig@orb.apana.org.au.
 "It is without question that planning should be for the long term. Not for the
     next day, but for the next millenium. Otherwise we shall not survive."