well, i have a theory about what my problem was/is.  Solaris 8 was complaining
about "protocol unknown" or some such jazz.  my theory was that the standards
for tftp have changed.  i haven't done any research on this, but i got my
FreeBSD box up and hobbling enough to test my theory.  the FreeBSD tftp server
works.  sadly the box is a) in bad shape and b) a piece of shit anyway, so
i couldn't successfully boot.  but i got a lot further than before.  this
whole process only strengthens my belief that the tftp protocol has changed 
and sun has (as always) been the first ones to drop backward compatability.
does anyone have any experience netbooting older SUN hardware off of a tftp
server running on Solaris 8?  do you have troubles?  i will be getting a copy
of an older tftp server for solaris tommorrow (solaris 2.6) and i will try that 
on my SUN to see if i am right or not.

if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on this subject, please feel free to
let me know what they are.

i'll also pour through the RFCs pertaining to tftp tommorrow to see if i can
lend any sort of credability to my theory.

cheers,

-brian