At 11:10 PM +0100 11/3/00, you wrote:

:)I tried some combinations of boot prompts:
:)boot cd:,\\tbxi
:)boot cd:,\\
:)boot cd:,
:)boot cd:
:)
:)which didn't work; then I tried
:)dev / ls
:)cd: ls
:)
:)for fun; and giving up, I did
:)mac-boot
:)and held 'C', and I got a small mac-icon in the center of the screen,
:)and a long path (with media-bay in it) directly below -- and it works
:)again; I can boot from a CD, at least once.

AFAICT, the way OF 3 machines normaly boot MacOS is:
start OF
OF has auto-boot? true and starts to boot (without showing the OF prompt)
OF boot-command defaults to "mac-boot"
"mac-boot" runs and looks on all available devices for a MacOS ROM file
If you have a key held down (C=CD-ROM, Z=Zip, command-option-shift-delete
means
  anything but the internal hard drive) it tries those devices first
When it finds the MacOS ROM file, it starts running that

What you tried doing was:
start OF
auto-boot? was false, so show OF prompt
use the boot-command of 'boot'
'boot' looks on the device you specify for the file you specify
if you didn't specify a file, it looks for a bootloader in `partition zero'
my guess is that your MacOS CD doesn't have a `partition zero' bootloader
  so it failed to boot.

So, I think all a MacOS bootable CD needs is an HFS partition, a "blessed"
system folder, and a MacOS ROM file.  The "blessing" process (I think)
changes some entries in the partition map.

:)Very, very weird. So much for 'computers are predictable'.

Just ask "Chris Tribo" <talon16m@hotmail.com>.  His Beige G3 is totally
non-deterministic.

  -- MW