Andrew Steven Ball writes:
> 
> Hello!
> 
> I just tried booting from netbsd.INSTALL.gz (well,
> NETBSD~1.GZ as it's called when I boot into DOS).   I got a
> brief flash of various colours (it looked as though the
> video buffer was flooded with 'random' data) and then the
> machine reset.  I've tried this a couple of times with the
> same result.  Should I gunzip it or something?

Well, dosboot.com should only be run from a nice clean DOS prompt.
So if you are using something like Windows 9x you should press F8
and select "safe mode command prompt only", then run dosboot.

Allegedly you can use dosboot with himem.sys loaded, but not with
emm386.  I have not had much luck with himem.sys loaded, so I always
boot clean.

The "flash of color" is the dying of your OS/memory manager/BIOS/whatever
as dosboot tries to go into 386 protected mode and start the kernel.

Also, if you are using a clean boot, make sure you used binary mode with
ftp.

-Andrew

PS.  The message from the lists appears to be directly from you, so if
     I hit R)eply it goes to you only.  So in fact I am actually just
     copying the list on my reply to you. :-)  This is normal procedure
     on this list, and is useful (IMHO) if the mailserver is slow.