In message <20020910042247.GA929@yzero>, you write: 

-> i got netbsd.ip22 to boot, via bootp/tftp. it prints some normal boot
-> messages in the prom monitor window (too fast to read), then the video goes
-> crazy and my monitor says "invalid sync". do i need a newer kernel maybe?
-> all the binaries i've been able to find (kernel and base) are from last
-> year.

Please see the list archives, where I recently pointed others at the 1.6
release candindate builds (which are auto-built every few days, or as often
as the build machine can manage to crank through all the architectures.

What I wrote then was:

| The latest official 1.6_RC build is at:
|        ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/200208190000/sgimips/
|
| There are also release/install notes there in text, html, postscript, etc.
| formats.

Note that you should adjust the 200208190000 (YYYYMMDDhhmm) to the latest
sub-directory of the NetBSD-daily directory with a sgimips directory (as
mentioned above, the build machine doesn't manage to generate each build
on a daily schedule due to the number of different architectures being
built...), pick the latest date-based directory and get the release notes,
install kernels and install sets from there...

Please report to the list if you have issues with kernels found there..  I'm
99% certain I've fixed the "video wigs out on boot" problem you mention in
your email a looong time ago, though running with ARCS console isn't really
a suggested thing to do either -- ARCS likes to grab various control char-
acters and process them itself (control-C will end you back in the PROM
with no way that I know of to return to the kernel, control-D does some-
thing along those lines as well, ...), which makes it pretty hard to use
the ARCS console for "Real Work"(tm).  Folks on the list have suggested
ways to deal with this, but I haven't had time to code anything up, never
mind test it 8-/

--rafal

----
Rafal Boni                                                     rafal@attbi.com
  We are all worms.  But I do believe I am a glowworm.  -- Winston Churchill