[Techtalk] connecting a dumb terminal

[Jeff Dike]

katie at katie-and-rob.org said:
> I have managed to find the setup for the terminal.  Among the items I
> can change (along with the values to which I currently have them set)
> are: 
> - mode: ANSI or VT52 (VT52) 
> - x/on/xoff, rts/cts or off (rts/cts)
> - Tx/Rx baudrate (9600) 
> - bits per char./parity/stops (8-none-1)
>
> Accordingly, the applicable line in my /etc/inittab now reads:
> t1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L -h 9600 ttyS1 vt52  
>
> But still no luck. 

Hmmmm....

Another thing you might try is disabling the getty there, and running
minicom or screen on it.  Then you can type at it and see what, if anything
appears on the terminal, and vice versa.

I'm most familiar with minicom.  It has little menus you can use to set
things like baud rate, parity, etc (^A Z P will get you the communications
parameters menu).

No guarantees that this will work, but it does give you better control over
the host side of the connection so you can experiment more easily.

Also, have you considered things like the cable might be bad?  Although
what you're seeing really resembles what I was seeing before I got the
baud rates straightened out.

				Jeff