Greetings port-alpha gurus,

  I recently acquired two DECpc axp 150's.  They came to me with NT installed on them, which of course I have no intention of using.  
The machines have the ability to switch from ARC to SRM firmware, I have switched to SRM.

The POST test shows a 150 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM on both machines.

When I do the command show box_setup at srm >>> prompt, I get the message:

IFP not supported on DEC 2000 Model 300.

When I run the command show device I get:

BOOTDEV	ADDR	DEVTYPE	RM/FX	DEVNAM	REV	NUMBYTES
--------------------------------------------------------
DVA0	PC FLOPPY	DISK	RM
SCSI DEVICES...
DKA0	A/0/0	DISK	FX	C2490A	4188	2.10GB
DKA400	A/4/0	RODISK	RM	RRD44	3593	......
HOST	A/7/0	PROC		AHA1742A G.2

and the other machine:

BOOTDEV	ADDR	DEVTYPE	RM/FX	DEVNAM	REV	NUMBYTES
--------------------------------------------------------
ERA0	08-00-2B-BD-1E-B9
DVA0	PC FLOPPY DISK	RM
SCSI DEVICES...
DKA0	A/0/0	DISK	FX	3243-19	28RV	4.29GB
DKA400	A/4/0	RODISK	RM	RRD44	3593	......
HOST	A/7/0	PROC		AHA1742A G


I obtained a copy of the 1.6 Port-Alpha iso image, 

I then used the command >>> SET BOOTDEF_DEV DKA400
to set the cdrom as the boot device

I then did >>> SET BOOT_OSFLAGS A

Then the command >>> B DKA400 -  was experimentally entered.

The boot process begins but stops very quickly here is the messages outputted:

INIT-S-CPU ...
AUDIT_BOOT_STARTS ...
AUDIT_CHECKSUM_GOOD
AUDIT_LOAD_BEGINS
AUDIT_LOAD_DONE

NetBSD/alpha 1.6 ISO 9660 Primary Bootstrap
Jumping to entry point...

NetBSD/alpha 1.6 Secondary Bootstrap, Revision 1.13
(autobuild@cs20.apochromatic.org, Sun Sep 8 11:54:59 UTC 2002)

VMS PAL	rev: 0x100010530
OSF PAL rev: 0x20123
Switch to OSF PAL code succeeded.

Boot flags: A
8084288+227040=0x7ed560

Entering netbsd at 0xfffffc0000301290...
ctb->ctb_type = 0x4
ctb->ctb_csr = 0x15
ctb->ctb_baud = 9660
panic: consinit: unknown console type 4

Stopped at	0xfffffc0000562a64: 	ret zero,(ra)
db>

it then puts me into the db> shell, which I do not know how to use.  
I typed the message help and got a list of commands, including dmesg

When I run dmesg at the prompt it outputs this:

CPU 0	a0	= 0x0
CPU 0	a1	= 0x1
CPU 0   a2	= 0x0
CPU 0   pc 	= 0xfffffc00005629cc
CPU 0 	ra	= 0xfffffc00003f21cc
CPU 0 	pv 	= 0xfffffc00005629c0
CPU 0 	curproc = 0x0

	Caught exception in ddb.
panic: longjump botch from 0xfffffc00003f2a4c
Stopped at	0:
CPU: fatal kernel trap:

CPU 0	trap entry = 0x2 (memory management fault) 
CPU 0  	a0	= 0x0	

at this point the message loops and at the bottom of the screen it says --db_more-- and the message continues to loop, the only way to get back to the db> shell is to power off and go through the whole process again.  

I have tried running other commands at the db> shell and the all give similar error messages, with a hex number and usually put me back to the srm >>> prompt.  

Do not know enough about Serial Port Terminal Settings, can someone point me in the right direction?
Is this a hardware malfunction?
When I look inside the boxes, the simm memory in the box with the 4.29 HD looks normal every slot is filled with matching memory, in the machine with the smaller drive, the 4 dual simm bays only have a module in the top bay of the pair.   Is this normal?  
I downloaded the user manual (www.compaq.com/alphaserver/download/dec2000_ug.pdf), unfortunately it doesn't elucidate much.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me on this. 

John