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Turning Your Mac Into a Serial Console Server

Posted by timothy on from the platinum-anchor dept.

chrisbw writes "Want to put that old VT100 terminal to use? Mac OS X Hits has a story on how to make a couple simple changes in OS X to enable login on a serial terminal (even over a USB serial adapter if you're on a newer mac). Cool trick for adding a text-based web surfing or email terminal in another room, or remote iTunes control!"

6 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Re:USB by chrisbw · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, my point was that if you're on a newer Mac that doesn't have a serial port, that you can use a USB serial adapter and OS X will happily use it as a regular tty.

    --
    Chris -- http://www.bitter.net/
  2. Re:USB by General+Sherman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, it will run on almost anything, just it doesn't want to. What many people are doing nowadays is buying old clones and using XPostFacto (try versiontracker.com) to install OS X where it wouldn't normally go. Like on a UMAX clone with a G4 800Mhz upgrade card in it.

    --
    - Sherman
  3. Re:Palm terminal emulation? by zachlipton · · Score: 3, Informative

    You might be able to cook something up with a Palm and a USB audio converter, but you wouldn't need a serial console to do it. However, here's a better idea:

    Get the SliMP3. It connects to your stero system and has an ethernet port on the back. Grab a Linksys WET11 and it's wireless if you can't run ethernet to your stereo for some reason. It works with iTunes and you can keep all your music in one place.

  4. Re:Palm terminal emulation? by cfoster611 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's always TopGunSSH . Its a old-school Palm SSH program, so you can get the command line on Palm. When I connect to my Mac OS X box with it (over TCP/IP mind you, though i think it can still do serial communication. Check out TopGunTelnet for pure-serial emulation.), tcsh by default has problems, most noticeably it seems to not to be able to run Pico or Vi (let alone Emacs).
    I havn't messed around with it enough; i've only used it in cases where i need to a little command line hacking from my Treo.

    --
    --- Kicking the Cheat since late 2002
  5. Re:USB by Golias · · Score: 3, Informative
    Actually, Macs used ADB for their keyboard and mice, and IIRC a 9-pin proprietary serial connecter for printers, modems, Apple Talk, etc. These were both quickly dropped when Apple went to USB (first-gen B&W G3's has an ADB jack, but that was gone by the first iMac.)

    At no time in Macintosh history did they have an industry-standard serial port, so you will need some kind of adapter to use a regular tty with any Macintosh.

    --

    Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  6. Open Firmware boot to serial input by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Yes.

    This might answer your questions (look at section 6):

    http://www.netbsd.org/

    Short answer:

    setenv input-device ttya
    setenv output-device ttya