Run SCO OpenServer in a VM?

[Chris Tyler]

On Sun, 2011-10-23 at 22:51 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > On 10/23/2011 03:34 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> >> I have a friend who is running his business on an old OpenServer machine, and
> >> would love to be able to just run a copy in a VM. The issue is that it talks to
> >> the old serial terminals through a multiport card. Any hope that I could get KVM
> >> to provide usable serial ports to the VM using a modern card? Or even not so
> >> new, I have a case of unused "HUB6" cards and would be glad to find a home for
> >> one, since modem pools are not a big thing anymore.
> >>
> >> I last did SCO admin for a living in 1993, and have done little but Linux since,
> >> so I'm not right on top of this OS any more :-(
> >>
> > I have not tried it, so this is just an idea. If Linux supports the
> > multi-port card, and it does support some, then map that many serial
> > ports from the VM to the actual ports. You will have to check if
> > your VM has enough virtual ports to make it work.
> >
> 
> Progress - I have the physical disk image in a file, and I start it with 
> qemu-kvm and it comes up to the "boot:" prompt. At that point things I type are 
> echoed to the console. If I hit ENTER the next part of the boot continues, and 
> it gets to the prompt
>    "Enter control-d for normal boot or root password for maintenance"
> At that point it ignores the keyboard, and if I go into QEMU and try to send the 
> character with that, "sendkey cntl-d" it ignores that as well. This was in a 
> *very* old system and I bet it's looking for an AT keyboard rather than PS/2. 
> Any thoughts?

Well...

(1) SCO Open Server was first released in 1989, and the PS/2 was
released two years earlier. More importantly...

(2) An AT and a PS/2 keyboard are the same, with different physical
connectors. (XT keyboards used different codes).

Is your VM emulating a USB or PS/2 keyboard?

-Chris