>From: Jarkko Torppa <torppa@cute.fi>

 >I got my junk-pc to boot without localdisks using boot-floppy which has 
 >kernel. I could speed up booting somewhat and eliminate need of copying 
 >new kernels to floppies if I would figure way to run netboot from dos.

 >This is what README of netboot says about it.

 >>If you wish, you can test the binary (boot.bin) by copying it to a
 >>floppy with the dosload.exe program and execute the boot code from the
 >>floppy.

 >Anybody know where that dosload.exe program could be found, or what it 
 >does ?

I had to do the same thing to a floppy less  notebook when I needed to
install NetBSD 1.0A on it.

I am not sure which version of netboot you have, but I found two (2)
while going through the preliminaries for the installation of NetBSD;

	The first one came from Carnegie Mellon University
and from the snippet of information in the README file, I believe
is what you have. The second one is from Martin Renters
(martin@innovus.com) and is the one I ended up using.

I don't know whether to give you the good or the bad news first, but
in any case; The version from CMU does not create a directly executable
dos file, hence "boot.bin", not ".com".
Dosload.exe is from the Linux camp and was used to load
that kernel from dos. It has however, gone through several permutations
and the later versions will not load anything unless they recognize
a valid Linux kernel. Unless you can find the version that was used
by CMU during their development or you feel like hacking the version
you find, that avenue is closed. (I also disliked the idea of
bootstrapping the bootstrap, but never mind).
	The version from Renters on the other hand will output an
executable netboot.com file. However the sources that I found,
compile under FreeBSD and not NetBSD_0.9 (I don't know if the compiler
from 1.0A will handle the code, at the time 0.9 is all I had).

	The good news by the way, is that it can be done. The quickest
way is to get the Renters code and compile it under FreeBSD, no fuss
no muss, it works.


	Patrick Arnoux
	parnoux@orli.com