Tried the new snapshot hoping that it would solve some of the my
problems.  My main problem again was with a couple of 2100's and lack of
serial console support.  After installing the new snapshot which went very
well I found that serial console worked!  Then after building a new kernel
which did not go very well for the 2100, I discovered that if any file of
any decent size was written to the disk the system would lock up hard. 
While building the kernel for the 2100 dc_ioasic_consinit() was unresolved.
 The requirement for this function was traced to the following lines in
sys/arch/pmax/pmax/cpu_cons.c:
       case DS_3MAX:
#if NDC > 0
                cd.cn_dev = makedev(DCDEV, DCPRINTER_PORT);
                dc_ioasic_consinit(cd.cn_dev);
                return;
#endif /* NDC */
  NDC was found to be defined as 1 in ndc.h in the directory where I was
compiling the kernel.  NDC was found to be 0 for the 5000.  I "fixed" the
problem by adding the appropriate lines to the makefile to compile the
files sys/arch/pmax/dev/dc_ioasic_cons.c and sys/arch/pmax/dev/dc_ioasic.c.
 The kernel then compiled cleanly.  The resulting kernel (as well as the
original snapshot kernel) was unable stable as previously mentioned.  No
indication as to why the was failing.

  The biggest improvement was perhaps gained by switching to a 5000/100. 
This may have solved many of my problems.  The snapshot installed no
problem, the kernel compiled (March 29 tar ball) compiled cleanly and have
only had one failure thus far.  The following message seems to have
happened just prior to the machine resetting.  Hope that someone would be
able to make sense of it:

Mar 31 02:02:01 thumb syslogd: restart
Mar 31 02:02:02 thumb /netbsd: free vnode: type VDIR, usecount 2,
writecount 0, refcount 12,
Mar 31 02:02:02 thumb /netbsd: 	tag VT_UFS, ino 22185, on dev 21, 3
(LOCKED)
Mar 31 02:02:02 thumb /netbsd: 	owner pid 4469
Mar 31 02:02:02 thumb /netbsd: panic: free vnode isn't
Mar 31 02:02:02 thumb /netbsd: syncing disks... 12 12 7 done

  BTW: Great job!  It is wonderful to be able to compile again and the
shared libs are a true blessing :)

  Thanks.

----------
Kent Vander Velden
graphix@iastate.edu