/ I am mortal and weak and probably just need a little clue.

Hey, I fit that description myself sometimes !  :-)

/ I am just that [!] bloody close to getting NetBSD running up
/ and running on a Centris 650.

I'll take a shot at a few observations.


/ System Config =================
/
/ Centris 650 16Mb RAM, external SCSI=4, 2x CD,
/ and Mirror Portrait monitor on built-in video
/ (Sonic ethernet and 2nd NuBus video card present but unused).
/ Running System 7.1.3 off internal Quantum 250 at SCSI=2.
/ Running System 8 on external Conner 500 at SCSI=0.
/ Install NetBSD on external Quantum 750 at SCSI=4.


/NetBSD/Mac68k Installer v1.16 ==============
/
/(from ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/mac68k/installation/misc/)
/reports  "Build Devices" success  and 
/ sd2a: Root 'Root file system' at 96 size 502412
/ sd2g: Usr 'NetBSD Usr' at 578454 size 800088
/ sd2b: Swap 'Swap' at 502508 size 75946
/ sd2d: HFS_PART 'MacOS' at 1378542 size 52975
/ sd2e: Other (APPLE_FREE) 'Extra' at 1431517 size 1

That looks like a legal number of partitions.

/ > mkdir /usr
/ > mount /dev/sd2g /usr    [==> OK, stuff is all there, etc. ]
/ > fstab force             [==> "Successfully created etc/fstab."]

Okay, you did that.

/ > ls sbin/init
/   18260 -r-xr--r--    1        0   172032 Jun 29 21:27 sbin/init

We know init is there.  Init's useful to have around... :-)


/ I don't have a verbatim report for the messages after the kernel 
/ is entered but pertinent stuff may be as follows:

Is the kernel on a mac partition or the netbsd partition?

/  probe (esp0:1:1) SENSE KEY illegal request, ASC/ASCQ not supported.
/  ite @ grfl not configured   grf0 at mainbus

esp is the SCSI driver.....

/  macvid  640 x 480, monochrome

Interesting that the V dimension was switched (from 870).

/
/  grf1 at macvid0
/  ite at grf1 not configured
/
/  boot device sd2
/  root on sd2a dumps on sd2b
/  warning: no /dev/console
/  init: not found

The SCSI error has me wondering.  From what you've given, it's looking
for the right partition -- but apparently it's having a problem reading
it.  (e.g. - you've shown a line from the installer listing init). 
There's a few other lines I'd question as well but I'll hold off because
I'm not sure I could add anything really useful.

As far as getting boot messages, under netbsd they're logged to
/var/log/messages.  the command "dmesg" will also show most of that
information.  Otherwise, the only way to log them that I'm aware of is
to a serial console.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Steve Revilak
revilak@umbsky.cc.umb.edu