Hi Jeff,
I am probably way late to the party, but I was goggling my name and found this thread, so the answer (in case you're still interested) is as far as I remember, the BB won't boot without the hardware mods i.e. the new 16 MB ROM fix was designed only for 16 MB and not backward compatible with 8 MB.
Jordan Krim
P.S. I still have my 16 MB ROM, but since I accidently blew up my really sweet Evergreen 486 (triple clocked), I haven't used the BB much. Haven't had a chance to try the 2X Cyrix 486 yet.
