John,

I'm actually in the process of configuring my Qube from by iBook 
running Panther.

Regarding your problem, you may want to try "xterm" or "vt100". Also, 
have you tried rlogin?

Assuming you're using the Rescue CD installation page, you may find 
this NetBSD-cobalt post helpful:

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-cobalt/2003/11/24/0003.html

Two things to keep in mind:
In step 13, you need to add auto_ifconfig=YES to the file if you want 
to use a static IP
In step 16, the netmask is written in hex (e.g., 0xffffff00) instead of 
as a dotted quad (e.g., 255.255.255.0).

Cheers,

Andreas