IBM Powerstation Progress!

[Jeff Davis]

Thanks for all the suggestions about the IBM Powerstations and AIX.  I 
dragged my new collection out this weekend and was able to hack the 
boxes open and get the serial consoles working!.

Luckily one of them (a 7011-250, forgot I had that one) had the lock 
left in Service - with that I was able to verify a working serial 
connection.  Things progressed quickly after that.  Using a screwdriver 
I pried the lid open on one of the locked (Normal key setting) 
Powerstation 7012-370's, was able to get the lid off and disassemble the 
lock and turn the switch to Service with a screwdriver.  All with no 
permanent damage to the case or lock!

I then could boot off an external plextor cdrom with the diagnostics 
disk, and verify things work.  Btw, I was able to copy the IBM 
diagnostics disk with Nero; will try next to see if I can make a 
standard ISO image of the diagnostic cdrom using my freebsd box.

So far I have one 250 with 48MB ram, a 370 with 64MB ram (one 8 x 8MB 
board), and a 360 with 128MB (two 8 x 8MB boards).

Next step is to get AIX 4.3.3 install cdroms and reinstall everything.  
Oh, and find out what's in the other three 7012-370 boxes I have.  With 
those I'll document, with photos, the "Breaking and Entering Into, and 
Hotwiring, a 7012-300 Series Box" saga.

Thanks,
Jeff