Re: Unisys TO-300 (lost keyboard)
Richard S. Shuford
|
| I have had a Unisys TO-300 terminal in my possesion for a year or so.
| I am wanting to hopefully connect to my FreeBSD box. However, I do not
| have a keyboard to go with it. In a topic from this newsgroup from
| 1999 it was mentioned that this terminal maybe similair to a Wyse
| 50/60. I am wanting to know if anyone can confirm or deny this, and if
| yes, if a Wyse 50/60 keyboard would work with it?
|
| I managed to find +5V and Gnd and tried hooking up a standard PC
| keyboard. Would anyone have the pinpout for the keyboard RJ socket?
| I had some luck getting the following on the screen ""*FDX Main 1- 1
| 0:00". The 0:00 would increment every minute I had it turned on, but I
| was unable to get any further. Having never setup a terminal before my
| knowledge is lacking. I was told you can press F3 to enter setup of
| the terminal, which I tried without any luck.
|
| Any info would be much appreciated.
| Matt
Matt,
These days, the computer industry is so boring, with Microsoft
and Intel commanding what will be built and all other vendors
merely obeying. It was much more interesting, back when vendors
designed their equipment in a multitude of inventive ways.
This is a long-winded way of saying that you probably won't be able
to get a "standard" PC keyboard (whichever "standard" you mean) to
work with this Unisys terminal.
Even if you managed to physically connect the wires without causing
a fire, it is highly likely that the voltages and signalling of a
PC-type keyboard will be totally different from what the terminal
expects.
If you are desperate, you might be able to find a Unisys-branded
TO-300 keyboard from a used-equipment vendor, but it would cost
money. Just now I found one for $65 U.S. by searching this website:
But perhaps you can do better; See also
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/various.html#dealers
If the TO-300 is a private-label version of a Wyse product (and I
don't know this), then you might be able to use a Wyse keyboard,
but finding one of those could take time, and there is more than
one Wyse terminal keyboard type. See:
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/wyse_terminal_news.txt
The F3-to-Setup trick works for many DEC, Dorio, and Boundless
products, but it is not a universal feature of character-cell
terminals. In fact, even for a single terminal model, the setup
sequence can vary depending on which keyboard option is installed.
The "FDX" just means "full duplex"; while "Main" tells you it's
not the alternate screen buffer being displayed.
Another avenue to knowledge might be among people who have been
users of older Unisys systems. Thus, I'm cross-posting to this
message to "comp.sys.unisys" and "alt.folklore.computers".
...RSS
--
Have a Cow, Man!
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