getty spawning too fast in 386/ix?

[Doug Mr-Science Stein]

I'm trying to direct connect a terminal via COM1: on a 386/25 system
running ISC 2.0.2.  I have editted /etc/inittab to respawn 00 starting
at 9600 baud (I know that I also eventually need to change 
/etc/conf/init.base [or whatever]), but after changing inittab and 
execututing telinit Q I get the following erromessage:
  INIT: getty respawning too quickly

Any ideas on what may be going wrong?