On Sun, 14 Oct 2001, Don Yuniskis wrote:

>Greetings!
>    I have a few IPC and Classics running NBSD,
>here -- all running headless, etc.
>    Recently built a new kernel with "options BLINK"
>(a cheap way for me to tell when a "shutdown -p"
>is complete on the IPC's).  It works as expected
>on the IPC's.

Dude, use a serial console.  Despite their age and low power those
systems are real hardware.  Connect the serial ports of them all to
another PC with null modem cables and you've got access to the system
console without "dragging out a monitor".  You can buy these nifty DB9
and DB25 to RJ45 adapters at most electronics, cable supply, and some
computer stores.  They are typically made so that you can wire them
yourself.  I myself have a whole slew of them wired so that when they
are connected to serial ports I can use a standard 10BaseT patch cable
between them to provide a null modem connection.  They all feed into my
terminal server and I haven't dragged out an extra monitor in months.
This works well for my sparcs as well as my alphas.

-- 
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.  There might be a
law against it by that time."	-- /usr/games/fortune, 07/30/2001

Brandon D. Valentine <bandix at looksharp.net>