as mentioned elsewhere the MacBook is usable, but crippled significantly.
Most significant: the machine runs at 500 MHZ - fan barely noticable which is cool if speed isn't the ultimate goal.
2nd screen supports 1920x1200 in million colors, really nice display on Eizo CG243W.
Ethernet works reliable if the the router port is set to 100/half duplex (doesn't negotiate).
Never mind, it's just an intro, so here's the main (and puzzling) point:
all started from the usual OSX setup from which the Alu Book literally went on a continous downward path loosing features during OS transition.
It was setup as a FireWire destination, then FW was gone.
During the initial OS-9 phase both USB ports were active, now the left one is gone, too.
My (humble) suspect: OSX has a (whatever) way to setup the firmware appropriately.
Digging deeper into OF wouldn't be too difficult (I know the language's basics), but I'd rather avoid it for too many languages already competing in my head.
Unfortunately I didn't partition the drive to keep OSX - but now will do and add it to the 2nd.
Maybe there's way to capture the firmware state or is this all reset from an OS-9 boot anyway ?
Can't imagine the latter because then all OF hack entries would be in vain, too (imho)
I'ver read the respective thread about OS-9 boot details a couple of times ... and will do it again... and again.