First off, I apologize for the grammar mistakes in my first message 
(they would make it hard to understand), like "could" should read 
"couldn't" in the sentence about the ttya console.

Ok, so here are some updates.

First,  I have remove the aging IBM drive to isolate the issue more.  I 
notice that the OF setting of "use-nvramrc?" was "false" so I changed it 
to "true".  The first error message I get mentioned is this:

 >trap type 700 at 946380
 >panic: trap
 >dumpsys; TBD
 >rebooting

I get this error when I boot off of the 1.5.2 cd using this command:
	"boot scsi-int/sd@0:0,OFWBOOT.XCF NETBSD.MACPPC"

The error appears after messages saying "waiting 2 seconds for scsi bus 
X to settle" where X goes from 0 to 2.  There is a line between the 
waiting message and the error but it goes by too fast.

Ok, the second error message -

I get this error when I boot off of the boot.fs floppy using this 
command "boot fd:0"

"siop0: scsi bus reset"
"DMA IRQ:  Illegal instruction dma fifo empty, DSP=0x1e0 DSA=0xe8fl3c: 
last msg_in=0x0 status=0xfe"
"DMA IRQ:  Illegal instruction dma fifo empty, DSP=0x1e0 DSA=0xffffffff: 
siop0: current DSA invalid"
"siop1: scsi bus reset"

Thanks,

Chris Atwood