[Techtalk] connecting a dumb terminal

[Katie Bechtold]

Hi!  I just picked up a portable dumb terminal, brand Informer and
model 207, that I'd like to connect to my RedHat 7.2 box.  I
connected it to COM2 (ttyS1) with a crossover cable.  I added the
following line to my /etc/inittab:
t1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 1200 ttyS1 vt100
and did a "telinit q" to tell init to re-examine the /etc/inittab
file.  But the wrong characters (or no characters) appear on the
terminal when I type on the terminal's keyboard or do a "echo test >
/dev/ttyS1" on my PC.  No login prompt appears at any time on the
terminal.  To be specific, sometimes a "}" character appears when I
press enter on the terminal's keyboard; sometimes nothing appears.
When I do "echo test > /dev/ttyS1", sometimes "x~x`" appears;
sometimes nothing appears.  Does anyone have troubleshooting advice?

I was told that this is a VT100 terminal.  However, a message I read
at
http://www.classiccmp.org/mail-archive/classiccmp/2000-03/0159.html
has planted a kernel of doubt in my mind, so I tried specifying
other terminal types, including ibm327x, with the same results as
with vt100.

-- 
Katie Bechtold
http://katie-and-rob.org/