Old Vintage Computing Research: Building a serial and VGA "everything console"

Saturday, June 13, 2026

Building a serial and VGA "everything console"

Some of our recent (and some upcoming) projects are oriented to systems with serial consoles, but it's been getting pretty old dragging around old CRT terminals or tying up Mac laptops with a serial port. I'd like something that's self-contained, a little more portable and a bit less heavy. I'm sure there's any number of all-in-one setups you can buy to do this, but I'm cheap, so I'm going to DIY it.

We'll start with this used, slightly abused IBM 1U console that I got for $120 (shipped) from eBay, add a terminal emulator, and put all the fixin's on.

Nearly every server company produces one of these. They slide into a regular 19" rack and provide a flip-up LCD screen and keyboard in 1U. This was an IBM 7316-TF3 with a 17" screen and a combo keyboard-mouse slimline keyboard. IBM apparently manufactured these from 2004 to 2014, so it's almost on-topic for this blog, even. I chose it because it was a little banged up and the LCD had some areas of damage (probably improperly closed on something), and the seller had priced it accordingly, but the screen was still sufficiently legible and the keyboard looked fine. Naturally you can do mostly what we're doing here with any of the similar Dell or HP or etc. units that can also be easily found.

The keyboard is an IBM "USB Travel Keyboard with UltraNav" SK-8845RC, the variant with an extra-long cable. This is part of a family of such keyboards including a PS/2 variant (SK-8840), the short cable regular version (SK-8845), and the larger SK-8835 with a numeric keypad.

I actually rather like this keyboard. It's decently space-saving and has a not-horrid tactile feel given its thickness, and of course the lower tray is customized to fit it. Also, being an UltraNav, the fact it gives you a choice of pointing device is rather nice: if you like TrackPoints (I don't hate them), you can use that, or if you prefer trackpads (I don't hate them either but I'd rather use the TrackPoint), you can use that. The keyboard and UltraNav are implemented as HIDs on a single hub which also offers two more USB ports.

The keyboard's USB cable comes out on the other end carried by an extensible folding arm which is how everything stays connected when you pull the assembly forward from the rack. The other cable carried on this arm is the VGA connector.

The screen is "fine." Like I say, there was some damage, probably because it got closed improperly on something and messed up the display, but it's sufficient as a simple terminal or here connected to the M1 MacBook Air with a USB-C dongle.

The only drawback is that it gets a little daft with non-60Hz rates; it's rated to 75Hz, but 60Hz had fewer artifacts. The panel's maximum resolution of 1280x1024 is sufficient for my purpose.

Although the keyboard can be lifted up clear of the tray it sits in, it is only tethered by a single bolt and clip. This is fortunate because of ...

... what we chose for the terminal emulator. Assuming you don't want to build or program this yourself from scratch (and I didn't), there are a few homebrews here that will take a USB keyboard and a VGA screen and a serial port and do the needful, and what you need to do is pick what is the most convenient for you and has the right features. There are slightly more such devices which use a PS/2 port, but I decided to stick with USB since it would be more flexible and if I really needed something else, I could use an active converter like a ps2x2pico for PS/2 or a Wombat for Macs with ADB.

I eventually selected this one from Tattler Solutions (not affiliated) because it ships from the United States (damn you UPS, you still owe me $600 on that tariff you stiffed me on), comes in a nice self-contained case and can be USB-powered, runs up to 115200bps, and has demonstrably good VT100 terminal support. All up it cost me $86 shipped. However, it also has a big drawback: its USB controller does not support combo devices like our IBM keyboard, which he does warn you about, and believe me, I tried really hard to get that to work because I really like the keyboard. Unfortunately, it truly is (and in fairness, as described) a fundamental hardware limitation that can't be programmed around, so that means we can't use our nice UltraNav.

I looked at slimline keyboards on Amazon and found two by Perixx (not associated, not affilated) that looked like they might fit ($20 and $25) and also had a PrtScr key to open the terminal's setup screen. The $25 keyboard would fit but did not sit in the little tray area, so we'll go with the $20 one and I'll find something else to use the $25 one for.

After a quick whirl through the keys to ensure that all the necessary function and control keys could be used and worked with the terminal emulator box, it's time to modify the lower tray.

My expert and exceptionally precise measurements...