---In message <3E99968C.10808@bellatlantic.net>

>Symptom: system 1 - built successfully from iso image, booted hard 
>drive, dka0, it starts to boot, gets thru the boot messages until it 
>gets to the message that prints out the day/date/time. Then it hangs 
>after it prints out the day/date/time.

Have you updated the firmware in the machines?  When i was setting up my
DS10s, i discovered that (apparently) the USB support is just broken in
the firmware, and i was seeing my kernel hangs at early but pseudo-random
times during the boot.

 I got the firmware image from Compaq, and netbooted the DS10s in order to
load it. Here's an entry from /etc/bootptab on the netboot server i
used:

lakshmi:\
  :ht=ether:\
  :ha=08002B865EC6:\
  :sm=255.255.255.0:\
  :lg=64.124.107.148:\
  :ip=64.124.107.147:\
  :hn:\
  :td=/tftpboot:\
  :hd=/:\
  :bf=ds10_v6_2.exe:\
  :bs=auto:\
  :vm=auto:


... generally, i followed the netbsd.org instructions for netbooting:

http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/netboot/

 --johan