IBM InfoWindow II 3486 - Looking for any information or documentation
Posted by Plus-Dust@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 20 comments
I like to collect dumb terminals and I recently acquired an [IBM 3486](https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/IBM_3486) pretty cheap; which kind of reminds me of the classic grey-bezeled PS/2 monitors. It is amber CRT and the CRT and unit in general seems to be in pretty decent shape with somewhat acceptable focus out of the box and no visible burn-in. I don't have the keyboard for it yet (it seems to take the Model M or "Battlecruiser" keyboards so one of those took a little longer to source since they have a cult following driving the demand up), so exploration of the interface is minimal until that comes in, but the device powers on with a POST beep and shows the typical terminal status line at the bottom with the letter "K" lit which then flickers briefly every couple seconds as if it's refreshing or something. If the CRT is already warmed up I can just barely see that it briefly shows another screen with a cursor in the upper-left just after power-on.
The device has an RJ-45 port for the keyboard, a PS/2 port, which I believe is for a mouse, and a keylock on the right side. The back of the machine has a female DB-25 port and a shorter female port which kind of reminds me of a "game port". I believe the shorter port accepts an adapter for connecting to IBM proprietary "Twin-ax" networking from AS/400 or System/36 computers. The female DB-25 at least physically accepts the null-modem cable I usually use to test terminals just fine. I put an RS-232 tester on the other end and was unable to get any lights or voltage with a meter, although for all I know it may need to be turned on in the setup or something. It's also possible that this terminal is intended \*only\* for Twin-ax connection and the DB-25 is actually a parallel port for a printer. Not a single plug anywhere on the machine is labeled at all (!).
I'm not sure what the "K" means, I was wondering if maybe it meant that the (K)eyswitch is locked, in which case I will probably just end up picking it or electrically bypassing it since it didn't come with the key. It's hard to say since even the keyswitch isn't labeled as to which position is which. Or it could just be complaining that it doesn't see the (K)eyboard. Or it might not be an error at all and it's just waiting for characters.
I've really been scouring everywhere trying to find any documentation or even 3rd-party information on this device - I'm kind of surprised that it's so hard to locate since it's a big-boy IBM product and not even all that old - from what I've been able to grep I believe it's from around 1992-97. The only solid documentation I've been able to turn up so far is a "marketing guide" which is really pretty useless as far as any real specs and I also turned up this text file announcing the product: [https://sharktastica.co.uk/resources/docs/txt/IBM\_192-192\_3486-3487\_1992\_IBM.txt](https://sharktastica.co.uk/resources/docs/txt/IBM_192-192_3486-3487_1992_IBM.txt).
I even have the IBM publication number referenced from those other documents; "IBM InfoWindow II 3486 User's Guide (GA18-7097)", but haven't been able to locate the actual document. A manual would be SO helpful to know what I actually have here.
Of course, I'm really hoping that that DB-25 port is simple RS-232, but even if this thing does turn out to be Twinax only, there's still a chance that I might be able to hack the hardware or firmware somehow, or there has been [at least one person](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrPlZyRmgLc) who was able to build a Twinax-to-USB adapter, so it wouldn't necessarily be all over if that turned out to be the case. It does seem like it could be a pretty nice display once I get it connected.
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