ross@ghs.com said:
>    1. The vga console has some subtle problem on alpha, perhaps an
> LP64
>       problem, perhaps a byte store side effect, whatever... 


As I have reported a while ago, I have problems with NetBSD
on a Miata which look quite similar. The PC164SX does use
a Pyxis too, doesn't it?
My graphics board is a Powerstorm 4D50T which should be properly
initialized by the firmware.
With a serial console, the box boots in most cases. Sometimes
it hangs at the point where the serial lines are attached, and
it seems that this always happens if I type in a character on the
serial console after the boot command, and more often if my console
machine is a slow one. (Which looks a bit like interrupt related,
but at least it doesn't seem to be a VGA-only thing.)
I've tried to narrow down the problem, without success so far.

best regards
Matthias