David Laight wrote:
> > I get
> > the banner from boot(8) -- b3@something dated 2006 -- then the "little
> > spinning thing", a row of numbers ending in 0x ... something.  The
> > next thing I'd expect would be the kernel banner, but instead I get
> > nothing. 
> 
> You need to set the bootcode to use the serial port (the BIOS
> redirection works for the boot code - which is why you'll be seeing that
> output.

I copied /boot and /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1 from my 2.0 box, and ran
installboot(8):

$ installboot -v -o timeout=5,console=com0 /dev/rwd0a \
		~/bootxx_ffsv1.netbsd.2.0

Rebooted.  Success!  Hurrah!  

> Also set the baud rate to zero, the bios-set baud rate is read from
> the UART divider registers and passed into the kernel.  All the
> kernel code (and tty setup scripts) that kept on changing the baud
> rate have been removed from the console code.

The installboot manpage still indicates that '-o speed' applies to i386. 
Should that be changed?  Or should it indicate that it's needed only to
override the BIOS setting?  

Thanks very much for the help and the tip, David.  

Regards, 

--jkl