>When I power up my 3000/300 without a video cable or keyboard 
>attached, I never see any
>activity on the serial port.
>
>If I attach just the video, and power up, I see the test on the 
>monitor, then it mentions
>that the keyboard is not available, then I can interact via the 
>serial console.
>
>Is there a way to eliminate the video cable all together?

I have no experience with 3000s at all. My AS200 4/166 worked fine 
with serial console with the TGA card yanked back before we had TGA 
support (it's great with X on my IntelliColor monitor now tho ;-)

However, I've been running Macintoshes for years, and they require a 
monitor to be present. So for headless servers, generally there are 
two suggestions. One is to use a video adapter...you could use an 
HD-15 to DB-15 (VGA to old Mac video) to do this. Apple actually has 
a knowledgebase article giving the part numbers for what adapter to 
use to fool each of their server models. The other method is to use a 
paper clip to short pins in the port to make it "sense" that there is 
a monitor. Unfortunately, I don't remember offhand which pins 
required shorting.

HTH
Mike
-- 
Bikers don't *DO* taglines.