well, I was content to leave this alone, but since you all are offering your 
help, I'll persevere. 

Thanks to some recent changes to the FAQ, I have verified that this ATI card 
does in fact grok open firmware. It does understand the word 'open' or so it 
claims. 

0 > dev ATY,mach64@F  ok
0 > words
close           restore         draw-logo       write           open
display-remove  display-install read-rectangle  fill-rectangle  draw-rectangle
color!          get-colors      set-colors
 ok
0 >
so with that in mind, I set my output-device thusly. I could use pci1 instead 
of the bandit entry. 

output-device       /bandit@F2000000/ATY,mach64@F ttya

odd thing is I can't use dev to get to it with the @F appended. So I'll try 
one more time with that left off and see what happens. In every case, I get a 
pure white screen, so *something* is happening. 

(correction: I preceded the address with a slash: the @F is irrelevent, it 
turns out).

Interesting: if I enter this command at the 0> prompt:

0 > " pci1/ATY,mach64" select-dev words .properties unselect-dev

the screen wakes up. Further investigations had me inside the card's firmware 
with .properties . . . .  incomprehensible but encouraging somehow. 

any idea on some way to put something on the screen to see if we can actually 
drive it? 

anything here I can use? 
0 > words
close           restore         draw-logo       write           open
display-init
display-remove  display-install read-rectangle  fill-rectangle  draw-rectangle
color@
color!          get-colors      set-colors

close shuts it off, I see. Hmm  . . . . and what an appropriate .sig quote 
that is, too. 
-- 
Paul Beard
8040 27th Ave NE
Seattle WA 98115

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
		-- Wernher von Braun