Thanks to Jonathan (jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU) I was able to get past dd'ing
the miniroot onto the drive (I was not including skip=16 parameter to dd). 
I've been able to build the base distribution on an rz24, booting off of the
rz23 with the miniroot & NFS mounting the distribuition from my Macintosh.

I can get the new system to boot up to the point:

init:copying out flags `-s' 3
init:copying out path `/sbin/init' 11

Then it freezes.  I've setup the fstab, passwd, groups, and a minimal rc file
in /etc...What configurations steps should I take before bringing up the
system?

--
David M. Whitney
Systems Programmer, Postmaster and Web Administrator, Fordham University
whitney@brenda.fordham.edu