Now I'm really confused.

I'm still playing with trying to convert a splice.  I can mount it and run
ls, but that's as far as I can get so far.

So, I'm experimenting with the idea that, since the first disk has a 32 block
offset, the second probably does too.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to create disk labels with a partition with a 32
block offset that stick.  I get

disklabel: warning, unused partition d: size 13281376 offset 32

I know i386 has special rules for at least c and d, and I think they have
special rules for a.  What's with alpha disklabels?  Shouldn't I be able to
have
  g: bignum   32      unused         0        0
?

-s