Thanks Shep, I'll give that a try, mine also comes up as rum interface.
The 2002 laptop I'm trying NetBSD on has worked with every other O/S that I've thrown at it, (MS Vista came on it), various Linux, FreeBSD, (PC-BSD), OpenBSD.
But not NetBSD - & there is a dearth of info for setting up wifi.
EDIT: Gave it a try - but still doesn't come up.