Thanks for all the suggestions about the IBM Powerstations and AIX. I
dragged my new collection out this weekend and was able to hack the
boxes open and get the serial consoles working!.
Luckily one of them (a 7011-250, forgot I had that one) had the lock
left in Service - with that I was able to verify a working serial
connection. Things progressed quickly after that. Using a screwdriver
I pried the lid open on one of the locked (Normal key setting)
Powerstation 7012-370's, was able to get the lid off and disassemble the
lock and turn the switch to Service with a screwdriver. All with no
permanent damage to the case or lock!
I then could boot off an external plextor cdrom with the diagnostics
disk, and verify things work. Btw, I was able to copy the IBM
diagnostics disk with Nero; will try next to see if I can make a
standard ISO image of the diagnostic cdrom using my freebsd box.
So far I have one 250 with 48MB ram, a 370 with 64MB ram (one 8 x 8MB
board), and a 360 with 128MB (two 8 x 8MB boards).
Next step is to get AIX 4.3.3 install cdroms and reinstall everything.
Oh, and find out what's in the other three 7012-370 boxes I have. With
those I'll document, with photos, the "Breaking and Entering Into, and
Hotwiring, a 7012-300 Series Box" saga.
Thanks,
Jeff