Connecting Operations Console to a used iSeries

Hi all,

My employer has allowed me to take home an old 9406-270 that was
retired several years ago and isn't being used for anything. Compared
to most (all?) the others on this list, I'm relatively new to this
platform (~1.5 years of experience) and this is the first time I've
ever dealt with one of these things through anything other than a 5250
session. At this point I'm trying to get Operations Console connected
and I'm having some trouble. I understand from the IBM docs I've got
essentially two options: connect my PC to it directly with a special
Operations Console cable or connect it to the network and administer
it over the LAN. As I don't have the necessary cable, I would
obviously prefer to to use the LAN option, but since this machine was
actually in use at some point, I'm assuming it already had a console
configured at that time. So, my first couple questions are:

1. If there was a console set up for this machine in the past but it
wasn't a LAN console, will I be able to set up a LAN console with a
new service host name without having to change any settings related to
the existing console?
2. If there was a LAN console configured, will I be able to connect
one without knowing the existing service host name? I'm guessing no
(there's only one person still at the company who was there at the
time this thing was in use and would've had that kind of information,
and I'm not betting on him remembering)

Of course, all that may be a moot point because when I plugged it into
the network and started it up earlier, I never saw any indication from
my router that it had actually been assigned an IP address, which
makes me think it might not have DHCP enabled. But, that leads me to
my next question(s): our sysadmin told me that it was possible to
connect my PC to the iSeries via direct ethernet and use Operations
Console that way. I don't see any reference to this in the
documentation I've been reading and I haven't had success trying that
option either; telling the Operations Console wizard that I want to
set up a direct connection leads to it asking me for a COM port, and
if I'm supposed to set it up as a LAN connection, I have no idea what
IP address I should use in that scenario or, again, service host name.
So, my final questions:

3. Is this possible?
4. If so, what are the steps to configure this?

I googled for the cable to connect directly and it seems pretty cheap,
so I wouldn't mind buying one if the LAN/ethernet option doesn't pan
out, but I thought I'd ask here first. Any answers or links to
relevant documentation are greatly appreciated.