I played around a great deal with netbsd-pmax on a maxine at a former
place of employment, and now I've got a ds5k/200 of my own to curse at.
I managed to label the disk (with digital unix's disklabel specfying 
netbsd/pmax bootblocks) and have tried two different miniroot's.  both
give me something approximating the following boot message:

Size: 1034128+0+90900
Starting at 0x80030000

copyright....
NetBSD 1.2 (GEERIC) #0 ....
real mem = 33554432
avail mem= 28082176
using 819 bufffers containing 3354624 bytes of memory
mainbus0 (root)
cpu0 at mainbus0: MIPS R3000 CPU Rev. 2.0 with MIPS R3010 FPC Rev. 3.0
tc0 at mainbus0: 25MHz clock
(configuring KN02 system slot as asic)
asic0 at tc0 slot 7 offset 0x0
dc0 at asic0 offset 0x200000 priority 7
clock0 at asic0 offset 0x280000 priority 0
le0 at tc0 slot 6 offset 0x0: address 08:00:2b:24:40:89
le0: 32 receive buffers, 8 transmit buffers
tc_intr_establish: slot 6 level 2 handler 0x80034aac sc 0xc0423e00 on
asc0 at tc0 slot 5 offset 0x0tc_intr_establish: slot 5 level 1 handler 0x800ed4a0 sc 0xc0425c00 on
: target 7
[yes, the linewrapping is screwed up in the boot message]
cfb0 at tc0 slot 0 offset 0x0 (1024x864x8) (console)
autoconfiguration done, spl back to 0x0
Begnning old-style SCSI device autoconfiguration
asc_intr: IN: dmalen 6 len 4 fifo 2
asc_intr: 1: bn 0 len 4 (fifo 2)
asc: asc_intr: cmd 12 bn 0 cnt 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 0 cond 0:118 msg 0 resid 0
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 12 cond 0:118 msg c0 resid 1064 
asc0 tgt 0 status 87 ss 82 ir 18 cond 0:118 msg c2 resid 0

and that's it, after that it throws me back into prom mode.
if I change the scsi id of my drive to, say, 1, the result is the
same up to the last four lines, which change to:
asc0 tgt 0 status 0 ss 0 ir 12 cond 0:118 msg c0 resid 1068 
asc0 tgt 0 status 80 ss c0 ir 20 cond 0:118 msg c2 resid 0
asc0 tgt 1 status 0 ss 0 ir 12 cond 0:118 msg c0 resid 1068 
asc0 tgt 1 status 87 ss 82 ir 18 cond 0:118 msg c2 resid 0

still 32 lines of the asc0 tgt ....  lines.  if I set the id to 2,
the last 6 lines change, such that it's 80/c0/20 for tgt 0 and 1, and
87/82/18 for tgt 2.  

so!  bad controller?  could this possibly be related to teh fact that
I disklabeled w/ digital unix's disklabel rather than netbsd?  I wouldn't
think if it got to this point that disklabel would be the culprit....  
oher than the prom level t 5/cntl test, is there any other way to test 
this?  once I get some equipment in the mail I'll have the facilities to
netboot this guy, but I'm guessing I'll run into the same problem (unless
the nfsnetbsd kernel was compiled w/o asc0 support, unlikely). 

any help is much appreciated, of course.

thanks,
nathan

(please cc: me on reply, as I'm not certain I'm on he list yet)