[rescue] VAX terminal question

[Mike Katchabaw]

Hi!

After a generous soul got me the appropriate power cord for my rescued
VAX 4000/500, I powered the beast up today.  It was set to go into
console mode at boot (with breaks enabled), and set to be in run mode.
It booted fine and all indicator lights indicated that everything was
fine.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get anything to appear on
my terminal.

As a terminal I was using an old laptop runing Telix.  (It has worked
fine this way on my SGI and Sun boxes in the past.)  I connected it
to the console port using an MMJ-DB25 cable, and then a DB25-DB9
connector to go into the laptop.  Using a straight-through cable,
Telix would report that it was online; using a cross-over, Telix would
remain offline.  Even though "online" I wasreceiving nothing
from the VAX, and I was getting no echos of what I typed with the
terminal in full-duplex mode.

The VAX was set to a 9600 baud rate, as was the terminal, and the
terminal was set to 8N1 as well.  I tried both hardware and software
flow control, and that made no difference.  Terminal emulation was
set to be VT102.

What am I missing here?  Since Telix recognizes when the terminal
cable is plugged into the VAX or not by going online or offline, there
must be some kind of signal getting through.  But what do I need to do
to get them to talk to one another?  Do I need special terminal
software?  Do I need to make sure a signal is sent so that Telix
recognizes that the VAX is really there and it can send data, or do I
need to do something to have the VAX recognize that the terminal is
there?  I have heard that most VAX console ports only use three wires
-- TX, RX, and GND.  Does this mean Telix is waiting for some other
control signal before it can transmit that it will never get?

I am tracking down a serial break-out box so I can look at the
signals.  Failing that, I am trying to track down and borrow a
"known-to-work" DEC terminal that should give fewer hassles.  In the
mean time, does anyone have suggestions?

Many thanks in advance!

Mike.