When our work was mostly dumb terminals, they would have a db25 to "rj45" adapter, then using a plain cat5 cable to a box called a terminal server (we used xypl

When our work was mostly dumb terminals, they would have a db25 to "rj45" adapter, then using a plain cat5 cable to a box called a terminal server (we used xyplex). From the terminal server to the actual server was legit Ethernet, and we would address the terminals as a term-server-ip:port combination.