Why does the screen turn grey with an icon in the center?
This means that your system is trying to boot Mac OS. You might get to this state if you didn’t properly enter Open Firmware (see the section called “How do I get to the Open Firmware prompt?”), or if your Open Firmware boot command is misformed. If you typed a bad boot command, Open Firmware tries to boot from the boot-device variable, whose default value is the Mac OS ROM. See info on the section called “The Open Firmware variables of interest” for help here. The grey screen with the icon is generated by the Mac OS ROM. A flashing question-mark or broken folder means that your machine is looking for a bootable Mac OS filesystem, but can’t find one. A globe icon means that your machine is looking for a netboot server. A happy face means it’s trying to boot Mac OS. The boot floppy does not have a bootable Mac OS filesystem, it has a bootable NetBSD filesystem. Reboot, re-enter Open Firmware and check your syntax carefully.