Make old PCs do a console's work
May 27, 2015
Got a wheezing PC someplace in your IT shop? Believe it or not, even the creakiest of desktops can still serve your HP 3000: as a console, a la the HP700/92 variety. This is the kind of PC where, as one veteran puts it,"the keyboards have turned to glue."
...Trying to type a coherent instruction (or even worse, trying to talk someone through that task remotely) where random keys require the application of a sledgehammer to make them respond, at which point they auto repeatttttttttttttttt.
It's enough to give a veteran manager a pain in the posterior, but hey -- some HP 3000s (of the 900 Series) demand a physical console as part of their configuration. Can't you just hook up such an antique PC straight to the 3000's special console port and let it work as a console? Yes, you can.
You can connect a PC via its serial port to the console port on the HP3000, and then run a terminal emulator via the serial connection, leaving it logged on as the console. That way, using free remote control software (VNC Free) on the PC, you could even have control of the physical console (as opposed to just taking the virtual console) so that things like Control-A/B would work.
You'll need a little physical cabling help to make this work. Even though those desktop PCs are old, most of them have not had serial ports in many years. Think about it. It's all USB by now. So you buy a USB-to-serial converter. You'll need a copy of an HP 3000 terminal emulator on the PC configured to connect via the serial port.
Just make sure the PC stays up and the emulator's window is open and connected. You don't need the console buffer filling up.