AS/400?

From: Paul Thompson <thompson_at_mail.athenet.net>
Date: Tue Aug 8 08:37:24 2000

On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, Geoff Roberts wrote:

> Thing appears to boot, rattles away at drives, status display is live
> etc, but have no idea what/where/how to connect anything to it. Have
> numerous cables etc, and an IBM 3477 terminal I found in my back room.
> Looking for advice on how/what to connect to it.

I am not an especially big expert on AS/400's other than retrieving two
old CISC models this year. (Kinda like staying at a holiday inn, I guess)

It depends on the model, but often one needs a twinax terminal set for 0,0
to act as a console. On the newer models, the twinax connectors go to a
DB9 (DB something anyway) connector on the back of the machine so there is
an additional balun needed to actually connect to the twinax media. My
documentation indicates that some models of 9402 CISC machine could
actually take ASCII consoles, so perhaps there were models in the RISC
variety that were this way too if you're lucky.

> Not sure if this fits in the 10 year rule, though the AS/400 itself goes
> way back, this machine appears more recent. Early/Mid 90's?

I believe if it is black is a RISC based machine.

snip

> 2612 x 1 (A chance encounter in a newsgroup reveals this is an EIA
> 232/V.24 One-Line Adapter) I translate that as a serial port.

I think it is intended for a support modem.

> None of these appear to be an ethernet connector, so I will have to hunt
> up one of those too I guess.

It will be ugly since ethernet is a licen$ed feature on AS/400.

Speaking of which, you will probably need the system password, an enormous
hex number which allows the software to continue working.

My documentation which came with my CISC 9402 even indicates that there
are movement sensors in some machines which will trigger if large
movements are detected and prompt for the system password. This was an
attempt to thwart people selling the machines without sending proper dowry
to IBM. Often times the machine will run for 90 days or so without a
system password but eventually on IPL one is needed for it to continue to
function.

This, combined with my lack of twinax infrastructure caused my CISC
machines to make the ultimate sacrifice. Properly reformatted they
provide nice IBM scsi drives for my more usable machines.

Paul
Received on Tue Aug 08 2000 - 08:37:24 BST