> If you have VMS, you can write an small boot program on your console 
> boot media that either adress up your ethernet card and net-boot from
> another machine or boots up from tape, depending on dist media.

If you have VMS, a VAX which boots from disk (750, 8200, MicroVAX II,
etc.), and a free disk, you can use VMS to copy a root partition and
boot blocks to the free disk.  After that you can boot BSD in single
user mode and copy the rest of the system from tape to disk, or mount
/usr, etc. over the network from some other machine.