thing is finally going to work this third time around (trying to work, babysit
and install NetBSD at the same time and i keep getting distracted) since i
put the kernel on the box, but forgot to install the boot loaders.  :)

anyway, i'm posting to mention this annomaly i noticed (unless this is somehow
"normal" behavior)

having forgotten to put the kernel on the system i was left putting the disk
back into the sparc box and since the sparc doesn't grok the alpha disklabel
i had no choice but to dd cdhdtape back onto the box.  used dd to put the 
cdhdtape image on slice c, put the disk back on the alpha, and booted it.

nothing changed.  it was still booting off the bootloader and trying to load a
kernel.  put if back on the sparc 'dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 of=/dev/sd3c 
count=100000' and afterward redid the dd of cdhdtape.  now it works.

i really would have excpected the dd of cdhdtape to blow away the disk, and am
very suprised that it didn't.  is there something i'm overlooking here?

thanks,

-brian