This can be disabled (to save a bit of space) with the NO_KERNEL_RCSIDS
options, which is present but commented out in the ALPHA config file.
In ELF-format kernels, these strings are present in the kernel binary but
are not loaded into memory. (In ECOFF-format kernels, there's no easy way
to keep them from being loaded, so they _are_ loaded into memory.)
a char *, because that's what was really intended, and because
if the print function modifies the string, various things could become
unhappy (so the string should _not_ be modified).
reasons: it won't attach as console, and there's currently no way to do
keyboard input on TC machines), and has no real RAMDAC (colormap,
cursor, etc.) support.
cgd