Hi Bob, et al.
Thanks much for the response!

[USB keyboard locks up on initial install boot, on a blue and white g3]
Bob:
> Yeah, it's a known problem (at least for those of us with these systems). 
>  There was a change to the USB and wscons code right afterr 1.4.2 was 
> released that introduced this problem.  I've found one problem in the 
> wscons code, but it's not the only one and it doesn't completely solve 
> the problem.

Ah, thank you! It is nice to know that at least I'm not alone on this.

Bob:
> There is a workaround for the B&W G3 since it has an ADB capability.
> 
> 1) Unplug the USB and plug in an ADB keyboard and mouse
> 2) Boot NetBSD with the ADB
> 3) Enter root, swap and filesystem responses on the ADB keyboard
> 4) When the system gets to the shell prompt (or login if you went 
> multi-user), unplug the ADB and plug in the USB keyboard

Sweet workaround. I borrowed a ADB keyboard from a friend's old mac
last night, and with this sequence of events I was able to finish the
initial boot. Ah, you can't imagine my happiness as I was finally able
to log into my system.

After building a new kernel from the sources in the 1.5-release
branch (with the fix for the inability to detect the root hard drive),
I can now boot and enter my system using the USB keyboard without any
problems. Great stuff!

> An alternative is to install and run 1.4.3 which works just fine on the 
> early B&W G3 without this "alternative" boot procedure.  With minor 
> changes to the config program you will be able to build custom 1.5 or 
> -current kernels and test changes if you'd like to try and debug the 
> USB/wscons problem.

Wish I could help more on this front, but 1.4.3 didn't seem to
recognize my (scsi) hard drive, so I didn't get very far with that
install :-).
 
> Hope this helps, and good luck!

Your answer was great help -- thanks much for taking the time to
right. My system is up and running beautifully now -- got X running
and all o' my favorite apps. Thanks again for providing the final push
for me!

Brad