Macintosh 802.11b ?

shabbyroad

I've just ordered D-Link access point and a pcmcia 802.11b card for my Windows laptop.

Apple sell an "airport" 802.11b pcmcia card but I'm finding it's about twice the price as generic 802.11b cards.

My question: can I use any old 802.11b pcmcia card in my Mac (G4 titanium laptop) or will I have to bit the bullet and give Apple more money ? Has anyone tried this ?

mayhem#

http://www.macwindows.com/airportpc.html

shabbyroad

thanks for the link - it focuses on using the Mac airport base station (access point) on a PC network rather than a "PC" card in a Mac with a "PC" access point.
Some of the links on that site should lead me to an answer though

thanks !

mayhem#

Some more Mac related links:

http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/ApFirmwareSwapping

http://edge.mcs.drexel.edu/GICL/people/sevy/airport/

http://www.msrl.com/airport-gold/

WUSBDesign

Did you managed to get more information on this subject?

I use a Netgear D834G wireless router, and Powerbook G3 (MacOS 9.1) with a MacWireless card (11Mbps). Co-existing on the network is a Dell laptop with a Cisco Wifi-G (54Mbps) card. So far, so good. But I am planning to move the OS on to MacOS Panther, and activate the much stronger WPA (instead of WEP currently) security. To do this, I need new wireless PC Cards for the Powerbook.

For native support from Mac OS Panther, I have sourced that the wireless PC cards have to be either Belkin (HSM), Buffalo (54a) or a host of others. Third party software is available for other cards, but at a cost. I am about to find out if my new setup works.....Meanwhile, I need to think about what I should do with my MacWireless PC cards.....

rsynnott

Unless it specifically say it supports Mac, it probably doesn't.

dub45

shabbyroad wrote:

I've just ordered D-Link access point and a pcmcia 802.11b card for my Windows laptop.

Apple sell an "airport" 802.11b pcmcia card but I'm finding it's about twice the price as generic 802.11b cards.

My question: can I use any old 802.11b pcmcia card in my Mac (G4 titanium laptop) or will I have to bit the bullet and give Apple more money ? Has anyone tried this ?

Posting in the Apple forum might get you more replies on this but are you sure Apple sell a pcmcia card? AFAIK the G4 uses the internal Airport 'Extreme' card. The aiport extreme is 'g'. Why not try the pcmcia card for your windows laptop in the powerbook when you get it? But I think I remember reading somwhere that there are no mac drivers for these cards.

mayhem#

shabbyroad wrote:

My question: can I use any old 802.11b pcmcia card in my Mac (G4 titanium laptop) or will I have to bit the bullet and give Apple more money ? Has anyone tried this ?

You don't need

1. Make sure that your powerbook has pcmcia slots
2. Make sure that the card you buy has drivers for MacOS

Good alternatives are the Belkin, Orinoco or Buffalo cards...

E.

dub45

Just came across this when I was browsing might be of some assistance to you. The author is writing about his experience with Netgear equipment.

n the Cards


Notwithstanding the trouble that I went through to get the wireless router working, my experiences with Netgear were still pretty miserable this weekend. I had also bought a Netgear WG511T wireless PC card for my PowerBook, which did not work at all. The specs printed on the side of the box didn’t indicate Macintosh support, but neither did the specs printed on the box for the Belkin F5D7010, which worked like a charm as soon as I popped it in. Apparently, the Belkin model shares the same Broadcom chipset as the Apple AirPort Extreme PC cards, and Apple added support for all cards based on that chipset in its 3.1 update to the AirPort software.

WUSBDesign

For the Netgear 511T to work on the Powerbook, try out the following:
http://www.orangeware.com/

dub45

WUSBDesign wrote:

For the Netgear 511T to work on the Powerbook, try out the following:
http://www.orangeware.com/

That's great thanks!!