An update:  the HD was indeed not very cooperative.  So, I 
slapped a 420MB one I had here.  It seemed installation occurred 
correctly.  But, when I tried to boot to the HD:

ok boot sd()netbsd -bs
Probing Memory Bank #: 1 2 3 4 5
Booting from: sd(0,0,0)netbsd -bs
The selected SCSI device is not responding
Can't open boot device
Available Devices:
SCSI disk [disk-device] (sd)
Floppy Disk [disk-device] (fd)
SCSI tape [tape-device] (st)
le [network-device] (le)

ok

What am I doing wrong here?