[plug] Serial ports on Sparc IPC

[Matt Kemner]

> I wish to connect a serial device to an aging Sun Sparc IPC.
> My question is, in the land of Debian for Sparc what is the
> device name for the two serial ports.

It should be /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttyS1 as per normal linux.
 
> else has been created. I installed and ran Minicom for sparc
> and it was looking for /dev/ttyS3 as the serial port, could this
> indicate the default is not correct or the device is not created.

I think that's just a Minicom default.
You can change it within minicom or by editing /etc/minirc.dfl

> The /dev directory shows, and would indicate that these are the
> device names to use,
> 
> crw--w--w-    1 root     tty        4,   0 Mar 24 06:35 /dev/tty0
> crw-rw----    1 root     dialout    4,   1 Mar 20 09:40 /dev/tty1

Those will be your virtual consoles. /dev/tty0 is always the currently
active console, /dev/tty1 is the one you see when you press ALT-F1,
/dev/tty2 is ALT-F2 and so on.
 
> As I presume the mouse and keyboard are using the other serial 
> 8530 chip I do not want to simply try writing data willy-nilly
> to the tty devices.

mouse/keyboard should be connected to PS2, so they shouldn't interfere
with your serial devices. You should be safe playing with /dev/ttyS0 -> S3

I find minicom a bit cumbersome - it might be easier to use dip:

type:

bash #dip -t
DIP> port ttyS0
DIP> term

 - Matt