It's possible to use a PN-8500MDS and other Brother Super PowerNotes series as a terminal.

You need a null RS-232 serial cable with DB-9 female connectors first. If you can't find it, it's easy to build. You only need three wires to connect pins 2, 3 and 5 (2 and 3 are crossed, 5 is the ground).

Add these lines to your Linux's /etc/inittab file

# For Brother Powernote:

S0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0 glasstty

And you can add the Termcap entry for the glasstty dumb terminal mode:

glasstty|classic glass tty interpreting ASCII control characters:\

        :am:bs:\

        :co#80:\

        :bl=^G:cl=^L:cr=^M:do=^J:kd=^J:kl=^H:le=^H:nw=^M^J:ta=^I:

Or use this line in the inittab, if you don't want to mess with termcaps:

S0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0 glasstty

Then do not forget to reset inittab settings by issueing this command: init q

Bits per second: 9600

Parity: No

Data bits: 8

Stop bits: 1

Xon/Xoff Control: Open

Signal Line Control: None

Echo: Off

Automatic end of line: Off

Sending auto linefeed: Off

That's it... The settings above also applies to other PowerNote notebooks of PN-8510-MDS, PN-8700MDS, PN-4400, PN-5700MDS, PN-5700DS, PN-8500MDSE, PN-8800FXB, PN-9000GR, Brother Geobook NB-60 and NB-80c