On Sun, 30 Oct 1994 00:28:19 -0400   wbrooks@volta.elee.calpoly.edu (Bill Brooks) wrote:
 > Sun 3, etc.) running NetBSD and almost every time I try to ftp over to
 > sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu, it's not working. PING just comes back and

You shouldn't be using 'sun-lamp'.  You should be using 'ftp.netbsd.org'
which is actually sun-lamp.  That's a semantics thing because some day 
lamp will just go elsewhere.. ie: mail.netbsd.org is actually at MIT.

Lamp has been down for 4 days because none of us live in berzerkely and
no one has been in the lab that the machine lives in to reboot it. 

You could try one of the places that mirrors ftp.netbsd.org like

ftp.iastate.edu which conveniently is in your state.

 > that are best to FTP? I was trying to avoid wasting bandwidth by
 > FTP-ing over to iowa since berkeley is just up the coast from me. Any

Physical proximity is not necessarily relevant on the internet.  For 
example, Theo lives down the street from me (about 2 miles) but packets from
my basement to his basement go through New-York and Cleveland.