On 2/19/2000 11:36 AM, Bill Moser [mailto:guillermo1967@hotmail.com]
wrote:
>><<(and currently connected wirelessly via his brand new Apple AirPort base
>>station and Lucent WaveLAN Silver PCMCIA card in his PowerBook G3...not
>>his Newton 2100, alas....but if anyone out there is working on a Newton
>>WaveLAN driver, I'd love to beta test! ;-) The AirPort base station,
>>card and driver were a snap to set up, by the way. Usual Mac easiness.
>>Plug AirPort base into wall and Ethernet hub. Install WaveLAN Mac
>>drivers, use "easy install" (one button click). Change TCP/IP and
>>AppleTalk control panels from Ethernet to WaveLAN. Done! From all the
>>stuff I'd read online I'd expected it to be a lot harder. And I'm not
>>even using the AirPort 1.1 software yet!>>
>
>Does one of these AirPort card thingies have a PCMCIA connector? I wasn't
>aware of that...
>
>Bill M.
No, Apple doesn't sell an AirPort PCMCIA card, although the AirPort cards
you put in iBooks and G4's and the new PowerBooks look a lot like
them....they aren't PCMCIA.
But Farallon, Lucent, Dell and others do sell Airport compatible PCMCIA
cards, though. Apple's AirPort is compatible with the WaveLAN / IEEE
802.11 standards, and their basestation is FAR, FAR cheaper at $299 than
the WaveLAN ones at $1000+ (although it does less...but for a home
wireless net that's not an issue for most folks unless you have a BIG
family; 10 users is fine.)
A Lucent Silver or Gold WaveLAN PCMCIA card or cards from various other
vendors (Farallon, even Dell) work just fine with the AirPort
base....and vice versa. In fact, Lucent cards are the only card Apple
officially supports for use with older Macs so they can access the
AirPort base in AirPort 1.1, I hear. I'm using a Lucent WaveLAN Silver
Turbo card in my PowerBook G3 Wallstreet with my Apple AirPort hub. $166
from Brumley and Associates. 11Mbps. A lot cheaper than the 2Mbps
Farallon Skyline card at $299, too. I read (after buying the Lucent
card) that the Dell card is also compatible and runs about $130.
Easy as pie to set up, as I said. Just plug it in, install the drivers,
reboot, switch TCP/IP or AppleTalk to "WaveLAN" from "Ethernet" or
"LocalTalk" and go.
About as fast as my 10-Base-T 10Mbps wired Ethernet connection to my ADSL
Internet connection. Of course, that's only a 640Kbps connection, so I
doubt I'd notice much speed difference evn with the 2Mbps card. It's
still plenty fast.
The AirPort base station reportedly actually has a (Lucent?) WaveLAN
PCMCIA card inside it! You can even hack in an external antenna to
increase the range. See the AirPort reports on www.macintouch.com for
lots of info. Even the PCI cards for WaveLAN for desktop computers
actually just have a slot for a WaveLAN PCMCIA card. Apparently most or
all of the Lucent WaveLAN products are based around PCMCIA cards...which
makes a lot of sense, considering it's a wireless network and therefore
portable computing is obviously a majority part of it's market.
Now if that fellow in Japan will just create the WaveLAN driver for
Newton his site say's he's working on (I'll happily pay $50 a copy for
the driver!), I'll probably (a) buy another WaveLAN card or two for my
Newton 2x00's and (b) buy another AirPort basestation for work...it'd be
SO handy to be able to Telnet into our Alpha OpenVMS minicomputer with
PT100 wirelessly from a meeting or anywhere in the building.
- Bill D.
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