>>>>> On Fri, 7 Oct 1994 Charles M. Hannum said:

    DG>    [...], and options SYMTAB_SPACE=70000 (or thereabouts) [...]

    DG>    Then run dbsym netbsd.

    CH> No, that's outdated.  If you don't use SYMTAB_SPACE and dbsym, the boot
    CH> block will load the symbol table for you.

Oh gosh.  Here goes another kernel build.  Thanks!
Of course, that leaves the question: why is dbsym still
there?  And where does the boot block load the symbol table?
And it turns out I have the old boot blocks, so that didn't work.
I'll try installing the new boot blocks.  Carefully.