i hate to answer my own post. i just thought some
might find my solution of use. turned out the CMOS
battery was seated impropperly or that it wasn't
making full contact. i just moved it about and
everything is fine now. settings are saved and it does
boot in srm.

--- netbsd alpha <netbsd_alpha@yahoo.com> wrote:
> right now the system boots into AlphaBIOS each time.
> The only time I've been able to boot it into SRM is
> by
> hitting that little tiny switch on the motherboard.
> Is
> it possible to boot into SRM from a cold boot AFTER
> AlphaBIOS has been loaded? 
> 
> There is an CMOS/Advance/Console Selection option to
> set the console type while in AlphaBIOS. It said
> that
> on the next COLD boot it will go to that type of
> console. I've try setting this to Digital Unix then
> F10 twice, then Enter to save it. Cold boot, but it
> still came back into AlphaBIOS.
> 
> Ideas?
> 
> --- Jeff Roberson <nomad@nop.aliensystems.com>
> wrote:
> > Do the following from SRM:
> > set os_type UNIX
> > 
> > Jeff
> > 
> > On Sat, 1 Jan 2000, netbsd alpha wrote:
> > 
> > > Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000 11:09:01 -0800 (PST)
> > > From: netbsd alpha <netbsd_alpha@yahoo.com>
> > > To: port-alpha@netbsd.org
> > > Subject: Boot up in SRM mode instead of
> AlphaBIOS
> > > 
> > > My Digital Personal Workstation 500au insists on
> > > booting up in AlphaBIOS as default. How would i
> > change
> > > this so that it boots up in SRM mode everytime.
> 
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