I haven't yet whipped up a debuggifying /sbin/init yet, but on my
DECstation 5000/200 I don't go straight to multi-user mode. Before rc
is run, I get the prompt asking for a shell, for single-user mode. It's
like init is seeing a "-s" flag from the boot loader or something.

I'm netbooting using the vanilla "boot foo/tftp" command, and everything
seems to work fine as far as that goes. Once I'm in single user mode,
I can exit out and have it enter multi-user mode automatically, as
expected.

Does anyone have any obvious answer for me, or shall I commence spelunking
in a day or three when I get a chance?

FWIW, this is with -current from a week or two ago, but I observed the
same behaviour with the December 1999 snapshot from ftp.netbsd.org.

-- 
Mason Loring Bliss             (( "In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams
mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us  )) build  their nest  with fragments  dropped
http://acheron.ne.mediaone.net ((  from day's caravan." - Rabindranath Tagore