Re: tn5250 0.15.7 problem? 3151's

"Jose S." wrote:

> "Jason M. Felice" wrote:
>
> > You've just lost me.. serial port to what?  What kind of protocol?  What
> > are you doing?!?
>
> Sorry about that...I looked at the original message and it doesn't make much
> sense...unless you've previously worked with a setup such as ours.  =-(
>
> Anyway, the Linux machine contains an ISA card made by MaxSpeed, which has 8 
>RJ-11
> ports which in turn it treats as serial ports through a device driver (is 
>that what
> its called in Unix?) For each RJ-11 port, the driver creates a /dev/ttyxy, 
>where x
> is a letter identifying the MaxSpeed card (such as 'a') and y is the actual 
>RJ-11
> port (letters 'a' through 'h') So the first port on the card is seen as 
>/dev/ttyaf.
> Once we change a setting from 'off' to 'respawn' in inittab, any 3151 
>attached to a
> tty port will get a login prompt.
>
> > What's a 3151?  A 'nix dumb terminal of some sort?  A thin client?  (Why 
>can't
> > IBM *name* anything?
>
> It's a text-only dumb terminal...I guess at one time or another it was used to
> connect to 370 systems, but in our actual business setup (the company I work 
>for
> owns about 50+ jewelry stores) the 3151s are being driven by a DOS Point of 
>Sale
> program that has its own built-in drivers to access a local database 
>containing
> customer information.
>
> > No offense, but this seems like a _really_ weird setup.  I'm assuming it's a
> > 'nix dumb terminal unless told otherwise.
>
> No offense taken...believe (sp?) me, it is a weird setup...but I guess that 
>since
> the company owns something akin to 300+ 3151s, they want to save as much as 
>they
> can by connecting them to the AS/400 through a Linux box. Thanks to your 
>program,
> I've been able to do this...so my (our?) thanks are in order...
>
> > I'm as confused as you are here.  First, if you are using a dumb terminal
> > and setting 'TERM', make sure you next run 'tput init' to send the terminal
> > a set of terminal initialization strings specified in it's termcap entry.
>
> Ah...I didn't know about that...I will try this first thing in the morning on
> Monday.
>
> > See if that helps..  It could power on with a really awful keyboard map, or
> > enter and newline are switched (sometimes happens).  Also, with a dumb 
>terminal
> > and a serial line, you have to make sure the terminal and Linux agree on
> > stop-bits, parity, and data word length.  There is such a thing as an 8-bit
> > versus 7-bit termcap entry, see if there's a TVI920-7 or TVI920-8 termcap
> > entry.
>
> Will check for the existence of a TVI920-7 or -8 termcap entry. The terminals 
>and
> their respective entries in inittab are set accordingly. The funny thing is 
>that if
> I go to a shell prompt through one of the 3151 terminals, I'm able to see the
> underlining and highlighting used by some man pages. I will try your 
>recommendation
> in regard to the 'tput init' command, see if that makes a difference.
>
> > Other than that, I've only set up dumb terminals in theory (read: I just
> > thought about it now, and that *should* work :)
>
> Hehehe...sounds like what my boss told me when he gave me this project: "Oh 
>yeah,
> Jose...I've heard of some companies that have made this work, so I know it's
> feasible." Yeah right...if it wasn't because of tn5250, I wouldn't even get a 
>login
> screen that looked decent!
>
> > I hope this helps.
>
> I hope so too...and again thanks for your time and help....
>
> > -Jay 'Eraserhead' Felice
>
> Jose

Are you using the tn5250 simular to a thin client, running telnet from the 
terminals?
I've had problems doing this with the Minicom program over dialup connections.  
I had
a hard time getting a connection to start over tcp/ip (thin client connection) 
and I
also lost my keyboard maps.  I just asumed it was a quirk in Minicom.  Don't 
they use
those 3151's for AIX connections?

Mike Everidge,
IS Director
Lakeway Regional Hosp

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