Sorry for not answering earlier, i simply missed this thread.

First: this type of hardware rarely goes broken. At the time this baby was built, IBM used only stainless steel and reinforced concrete. Nothing short of an atomic strike will be able to break these babies once you got them going. ;-))

Second: You need an "ioplanar" a "sysplanar" and maybe a SCSI connection to attach the disk(s). I am not sure if the 39H had a SCSI adapter integrated on the ioplanar or not. This should be enough to connect via a serial terminal (set it to "9600,8,N,1", unlike newer system which use 19200 baud, use either a "wyse60" emulation or a "IBM3151[-III]").

The flashing "888" is a very bad sign. To help you search further, it is called "three-digit-code" in IBM-lingo. Subcode 103 is, if memory serves correctly, something about a dump, AFAIR, and "125-911" will be subcodes for this 103-condition (if it is really about dumping probably the reason for the dump).

//edit: 103 is hardware, according to this. This documentation is about another MicroChannel system but should be the identical to yours in this regard.

I will see if i can retrieve further information from the heap in my basement (:-)) ). In the meantime this link might help you, maybe this link too.

Moderator's Comments:

This is a laudable effort and more consideration on your part than usually displayed. Welcome to the forum and i hope to see you more often. Do not think too much about placing your thread, though. The line is not drawn too sharply and we understand that sometimes it is difficult to determine where a thread belongs. As long as it is arguably in one of the seemingly correct boards it is ok and further we (the moderators) are used to move around threads until they finally fit in.

I hope this helps.

bakunin