Thank you boot_wb and others - the information in this thread deserves to go into the library section along with this open firmware info -

http://elinux.org/Flameman/openfirmware-apple#The_Apple_BIOS.2C_hardware-independent_firmware

http://www.firmworks.com/QuickRef.html

(provided in a response to my post in this thread - https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8542&forum=3 )

I now have OS X, Ubuntu 10.04 (a bit old but I already had it on a cd) and MorphOS 3.1 installed on my powerbook. Those three really didn't seem to want to co-exist but my will proved stronger. ;)