someone asks on fedi
:
> Does anyone have experience with IPL devices?
Me:
> Like.... an S/370? a System Z? What are you IPLing from..... oh, not that kind of IPL

@freya

We experience similar issues with initialisms, especially as we've learnt more of them over time.

VFS springs to mind for both tech and trans+ topics.

@freya had too look it up. Disappointing - for a second I thought Philips and Braun were selling FICON DASDs or something

@mbpaz fucking yes omg. yes yes yes. I don't know much about that side of it, I'm an AIX girlie

@SleepyCatten yeah VFS to me means Virtual File System

@freya so that would be SSA DASDs for you.

It's been some 27 years since I touched the trusty IBM 7133 arrays...

@freya

We know 🤭🩷

@mbpaz I've been waiting yeeeeeears to find someone who can in fact donate me something like an IBM Power 720 Express or something, because fuck no I could never afford one

@freya I had one in a former life. Sigh.

@freya 🟣 Initial Program Loader?

@ampOnfies very good!

@freya 🟣 What is?

@ampOnfies you, recognising the term! awawaa!

@freya 🟣 It comes up a lot in game console modding, sometimes interchangeable with BIOS.

@freya 🟣 Such as: Replacing the IPL with an unofficial one that allows games to be loaded from a media other than a disc, such as on the Dreamcast or Gamecube. (There are mods for them to be able to read SD cards or hard drives.)

But modifying the IPL requires soldering, usually...

@freya @SleepyCatten Virtual Filesystem Switch (dammit)

@ampOnfies ooooo!

@freya 🟣 I... doubt you play many video games, but for those who do, being able to load them without a disc will probably become more relevant as the original drives die and the discs rot... how sad.

And well, there's a version of Windows NT for Gamecube. No sound... keyboard and mouse support... exists. (Currently using very rare accessories.)

@ampOnfies I play some, mostly megadrive games

@freya 🟣 Geeze... Mega Drive games are already quite hard for me. Sorry for assuming.

@ampOnfies @freya Didn't know that game consoles also called it IPL! I associate that word specifically with IBM computers

@vaporeon_ @ampOnfies yeah same

@freya @vaporeon_ 🟣 There's a reason the term can be interchangeable with BIOS. Some of them even perform similar functions. Though... those ones might be less likely called IPL.

@ampOnfies you're ok sweetie! awawawwawaaa

@freya @ampOnfies Do you have any IBM computers?
I sadly do not, but I dream of getting to use a mainframe with punched cards...

@vaporeon_ @ampOnfies I do not yet, though I might be getting an IBM,8202-E4C soon

@ampOnfies megadrive and GBA for me, though I was a dumbass and sold my GBA SP ages ago. I really want to get an Analogue Pocket, since the high-res bright screen would make a lot of GBA titles more playable

@freya 🟣 Well, GBA is quite fun.

@freya so, do you have any experience with IPL devices (of the IBM kind)? (I have one and it won’t IPL)

@noisytoot I do not, unfortunately, I'm an AIX girly, not a System Z and friendss side

@freya they call it IPL on Power Systems too (mine is a 9008-22L)

@noisytoot oh they do? huh. what's up with her, what's she doing, and what're you trying to run?

@freya I'm just trying to get it to boot anything at all. It reaches status code AA00E1B0 (meaning "Waiting for the user to select language and keyboard."), but there is no output on the serial port and I don't have an HMC so I can't access the serial port that way.

I think I probably just didn't connect to the serial port correctly (either that or there's something actually wrong with it). It's one of those 8P8C ones but it doesn't seem to be any of the standard pinouts (I tried EIA/TIA-561 and Yost). There's an official IBM adapter that might work but it's quite expensive for a passive adapter.

@noisytoot shit, ok, yeah, you're gonna have to get yourself a vHMC. sanity check, you did check all baud rates, all that, right? did you put a scope on the pins to verify whether that 8p8c connector is in fact serial?

@freya there's an ASMI web interface that I can access via the FSP ethernet ports where I can set the baud rate and I made sure all that was right. I don't have an oscilloscope (I should get one) but the documentation says it's serial and I measured 15V with a multimeter (which seems right for RS232 and definitely not Ethernet)

@noisytoot yeah that smells like RS-232, yeah, and she's just not outputting anyth- wait wait wait hold the fuck on, if she's configured for an HMC, her primary serial won't output anything right? can you do a full factory reset on the FSP? I don't recall how to do that but I think it can be done from the front panel? that should(?) bring serial up

@freya it was initially configured for an HMC but I reset the FSP from the ASMI web interface before doing this (it was also sold to me with an unknown ASMI password initially, which I reset with a jumper on the FSP)

@noisytoot hmmmmmmmmm what the hell then, yeah she absolutely should be outputting to the serial, what the fuck?

@freya my suspicion continues to be that it's a weird pinout and I just didn't connect it right, but I haven't been able to find any information about what the correct pinout is.

I might end up buying the overpriced IBM serial adapter, I can at least return it if it doesn't work. (I also can't do anything about it right now, I'd need to wait until I get home in a few days)

@noisytoot yeah it is a nonstandard pinout, web says IBM P/N 46K5108, Cisco port will not work. stock is 19.2 KBaud as well, if you can re-pin a serial cable that'd work but yeah

@freya @noisytoot this should be just a null modem rj45 part if memory doesn't fail me. No point in buying the > 50 buck IBM part

Edit: https://detailspin.com/cable/pinout-for-null-modem-cable-db9-rj45.html

@TheOneDoc @noisytoot afaik POWER boxen have their own system console port pinout

@freya @noisytoot days null modem in my power 7 manual

@TheOneDoc @freya null modem doesn't specify the pinout, it just means it's a DTE

@noisytoot @freya it does https://pinoutdiagrams.com/db9/db9-to-rj45-null-modem-pinout

@TheOneDoc @freya I can’t actually view that website because it’s behind a cloudflare captcha and even if I get past that there’s a popup that reappears every time I close it with a link to something that gets blocked by ublock origin, but there’s more than one pinout. A null modem cable just has rx and tx swapped (although which exact pins are swapped can vary)