the pause between the blinking cursor and eCS blob showing up is 60+ seconds
when booting from floppies for reinstalling, the boot options menu shows up w/out any delay. After choosing the the options, the screen clears and shows two lines of text("OS/2 Config Menu * Veit Kannegieser * 1999.01.19--2001.01.10" on first line, "using reserved memory" on second) followed by a blinking cursor on the 3rd line. After a 60+ second pause, it finally shows the eCS blob and continues the boot.