\_ If your sparc is anything like the ones at work then do a 'STOP A'
\_ to bring it to the boot prompt.  If you have a bootable cdrom then
\_ try typing 'boot cdrom' and see what happens or try 'boot floppy'
\_ and see if it boots the floppy.

Ah, STOP A.  That brings back fond memories... like the time I took a
diskless Sun 3/50 down hard enough STOP A didn't work.  

Short version: do *not* feed xstart/startx ctrl-c in the middle of
its load process.  

At this point, I suspect that the init had partly reconfiged the
keyboard for X, but when I killed it, it didn't gracefully
recover.... But that wouldn't explain the
snowfield-dark-snowfield-dark cycle that was lighting up the back of
the lab.  Verra pretty.  Cylon detector stopped even.

More evil to follow, provided I can remember it and not the joys of
freshman CS.

David