Posting this here for those who've been mailing me asking if I've gotten anywhere since my original posting. I've finally solved my problem w/ the 8086 dumbterm...my original setup was w/ the dumbterm on /dev/ttyS2 at irq 3 (standard for second serial port), and my modem on /dev/cua0 at irq 3 (standard for modem). The prob w/ that was that the getty respawned too fast and would disable for 5 minutes. (presumably because it would find the modem and get an answer from it, disconnect, reconnect, or something like that, anyway).

Second attempt: /dev/ttyS2 for dumbterm's null modem cable, setserial ttyS2 irq 5. No good here: the connection was too slow (apparently for some reason that second serial port could only handle irq 3, because of jumper settings, or something. So, i rebooted, and held down the DEL key to run setup, set second serial port to COM 4, rebooted. My dumbterm's null modem was now connected to the same serial port, but that serial port was now COM 4 (/dev/ttyS3). Next step was figuring out the jumper settings for my modem...I left the modem on COM 1 (cua0), but changed the jumpers to move it to IRQ 5. Then i had to do "setserial /dev/cua0 irq 5" and "setserial /dev/ttyS3 irq 3". No more conflicts, my modem is on irq 5, my dumbterm is on irq 3, and all my peripherals are happily talking to themselves :)

Hope some of this info helps you guys out...i don't have any more info than what i've posted here though, sorry.

-- Eric

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Eric Sakowski aka Lem aka Ouroboros
Computer Operator, Systems Dept., RU Libraries Tech Services
http://remus.rutgers.edu/~worm