I tried to boot NetBSD 1.5.1 boot1.fs and boot2.fs diskettes, but the second
diskette hung.  Last lines were

mainbus0 (root)
isa0 at mainbus0
com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fif0
com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fif0
wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14
wd0 at wdc0 channel0 drive 0: <SAMSUNG PLS-31274A>
wd0: drive supports 16-sector pio transfers. lba addressing
wd0: 1213 MB, 2466 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2485728 sectors
wd0: drive supports PIO mode 3, DMA mode 1

Sometimes the last line didn't show.  When I booted the installation kernel with
DOSBOOT.COM from DR-DOS 7.03 with EMM386.EXE not loaded in CONFIG.SYS, I got one
additional line:

wdc1 at isa0 port 0x170-0x177 irq 15

before hanging.

When I booted the generic kernel with DOSBOOT.COM, I got this plus three more
lines before hanging, and the same with the generic-diagnostic kernel, which
didn't do any more diagnosis than the plain generic kernel:

vga0 at isa0 port 0x3b0-0x3df iomem 0xa000-0xbfff
wsdisplay0 at vga0: console (80 x 25, vt100 emulation), using wskbd0
lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378-0x37b irq 7

Text was green on black, and the last line was black except for one little white
rectangle in column 1 (screen width 80 columns).

Is there any way to capture the dmesg to a file that would survive when the boot
fails?  Something like dosboot netbsdi > dosboot1.log
which I don't think would work here?

I downloaded NetBSD-INSTALL.gz and NetBSD-GENERIC.gz and saved as NETBSDI.GZ and
NETBSDG.GZ since I am in DR-DOS 7.03.  Then I decompressed with
C:\UNTGZ095\UNTGZ32 -d NETBSDI.GZ NETBSDI  and
C:\UNTGZ095\UNTGZ32 -d NETBSDG.GZ NETBSDG

Upper case or lower case makes no difference with file names in DOS.

I was successful booting OpenBSD 2.9 installation diskette, though I couldn't
go far since I didn't download the stuff to install.  I was also able to boot
Linux Slackware 8.0 using N_5380.S kernel, though the system hung when I tried
to mount the CD-ROM (must be a bug in the driver, since this hang occurs every
time when I try to mount the CD-ROM).

This is on my current old computer, essentially a preview, where I downloaded
NetBSD, but none of the packages/pkgsrc, in two sessions using a DOS-based
scripted FTP.  Modem is 56K on 0x2e8, IRQ 5.  CPU is Cx486DX2-S at 66 MHz.
NetBSD sees the CPU as Cyrix 486DLC (486-class).  RAM is 20 MB.  Hard disk is
1213 MB, partitions are (all primary):

1:  65 cylinders (just under 128 MB) FAT16 for DR-DOS 7.03, drive C:
2: 130 cylinders (just under 256 MB) FAT16, DOS data, drive D:
3: type 83 (Linux native, not formatted, not in use)
4: type 82 (Linux swap, not in use, 30 cylinders (?))

NetBSD would be installed in the space taken by partitions 3 and 4, which would
be deleted.

I have floppy drives A (1.44 MB) and B (1.2 MB).  I have Trantor T130B SCSI with
internal Texel 2x CD-ROM and external Iomega Zip 250.  Zip 250 is in doubtful
condition, appears on the way down.  I heard a click on the Zip 250 while
trying to boot the NetBSD installation diskettes, presumably meaning the boot
diskettes probed that port.

Are there any parameters I might enter from the keyboard during or while
booting?  Or is NetBSD not runnable at all on this computer?  Would it pay to
untgz the man pages to view under DR-DOS 7.03?