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Problem: vmware segfaults after clicking on power-on. Not only that, it bombs out the dynamic loader and although things seem to run (for a while) a push on the panic button is necessary. Not good.

Did you by any chance set up the Parallel Port in VMWare to be bidirectional, using device /dev/parport0, rather than unidirectional using device /dev/lp0?

No, both lpt1 and lpt2 are set to "not connected". Volker