> There isn't any "lo" or "loop" in the MAKEDEV file.

And there never will be.  To view network interfaces use 'netstat -i';
to use them try socket(), bind(), etc.

>> ugly ugly
>> 127.1           localhost myhost

> I tried this but it didn't seem to work.

Did you reboot?  I think it's the routing commands in /etc/netstart
that mess up an machine that has only the loopback interface.  The
symptom is that it cannot connect to it's own hostname; it just hangs
and times out.  The problem it that it's hostname is bound to an IP
address that has no interface (unless the hostname is bound to 127.1).
The 'route add $hostname localhost' in /etc/netstart only makes it
worse in this case.