Original Airport card and 10.3?

Any news on your question? Do you know what card is needed to connect to an airport extreme in OS 9 or OS 10.2.8? I have a Wallstreet that I would like to travel with.

Thanks.

I use a Macsense model WPE-800 AeroCard Extreme (802.11g 54Mbps) PC card < <a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://">http://www.macsense.com/Product/networking/WPE800.html > on my G3 Pismo running Tiger. Was plug & play. It operates on 10.2 up.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Message discarded.

Message was edited by: Jan Hedlund

Sludgedragon wrote:
I know PC cards that will be recognized by Airport in OS 9 won't in 10, but require other drivers. What about the original Airport card, since I believe it's basically the same as an Orinoco card? Before I spend the money on an Airport card for my Pismo, I want to make sure that it will run with 10.3.9 or even 10.4 if I get around to getting that.

Hi, the main difference is that with a Pismo the Apple card can be mounted internally and hooked up to the built in antenna. I find that makes a big difference in reception since I might be roving a fair distance from the base.

The Apple card works perfectly with 10.3 and 10.4.11 which I am using to write your reply. I have also used the Microsoft MN-720 cards in Pismos and Lombards and they work ok, as I said the Apple card can be hooked up to the built in antenna and that to me makes it more reliable as I venture further from the base.

The Microsoft card has a built in antenna (lump on the end) and is seen and works fine with Airport SW in 10.3 and 10.4 plus is 802.11g but I don't do a lot of file transfers on the wireless network so I personally don't find it any faster than the slower b card.

As you surmised, the Orinoco Wavelan Silver card seemed to do the trick under OS 9 but doesn't take advantage of Apple's built in airport drivers in OS X. If you can spring for it I would personally go with the Apple card because it has better range and doesn't use up your PCMCIA slot.

Otherwise the Microsoft card is a lot cheaper......

Kevin

I get the impression, although I have not seen it directly stated, that the genuine Apple original Airport cards ARE supported into Mac OS X, and what was dropped was support for the off-brand ones, like orinoco cards. Perhaps someone with this hardware can speak up and let us know if this is true.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
I get the impression, although I have not seen it directly stated, that the genuine Apple original Airport cards ARE supported into Mac OS X, and what was dropped was support for the off-brand ones, like orinoco cards. Perhaps someone with this hardware can speak up and let us know if this is true.

Grant, I have the Apple original, Microsoft, Orinoco Wavelan Silver, 2Wire (Wavelan) and AeroLan.

The Wavelan Silver always required the Orinico drivers for OS 9 which are Orinoco 7.1 I used these cards for several years in my Lombard and OS 9.2

2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Hardware requirements are a Macintosh with a PC card slot and a
compatible ORiNOCO™ wireless PC card, or a Macintosh with an
internal Apple Airport card. System software requirements are
MacOS 8.6 through 9.2.1.

** An additional requirement was identified in testing. **
** See section 6 (Known Issues) below for more information **

-------------------------------------------------------------------

3. NEW IN THIS RELEASE

This release offers several substantial improvements over previous
releases. These include:

1: Direct support for all Agere-based PC cards and Apple’s internal
wireless card;

2: Support for multiple wireless configurations, Apple’s Location
Manager, and a Setup Assistant to aid users in creating wireless
configurations;

3: A unified user interface for both 802.11 and Access Server
network types;

4: Automatic card firmware download; (This download is only to the
card’s RAM and does not alter the card permanently.)

5: A simplified software installation and removal process.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Orinoco never came out with OS X drivers for their cards and Apple's built in software never supported the Orinoco cards. A shareware driver called WirelessDriverBeta5_1 was making the rounds and I seem to recall using it under OS X with marginal results. One special trick with the setup of the Orinoco card, if you use WEP encoding you need to add 0x ahead of your WEP password.
The only Orinoco drivers I have in my archive are only good up to OS 9 and that is driver 7.2.

Another fellow was working through the problem here,

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5325635

Oddly I seem to recall using the 0x on a Wallstreet in 9 to solve the wep password problem.

As stated in the preceeding post I prefer the Airport card to the MN-720 due to range.

Both the Apple and Microsoft cards work very well in the Pismo and Lombard under OS X and Apples airport sw with the Microsoft card being 1/5 the cost used I remember paying no more that $10-15 usd a couple of years ago for them.

Kevin

Message was edited by: Niteshooter

Sludgedragon wrote:
"The Wavelan Silver always required the Orinico drivers for OS 9"

I found that my Wavelan card in 9 was recognized as an Airport card.

Did it work properly with WEP passwords? Was it a gold or silver card as there were different versions of Wavelan cards.

Thanks

Kevin

I just fired up a Lombard running OS 9.2 and the 2Wire which is an Orinoco aka Wavelan card. Airport SW reports it cannot find the proper hardware and system profile reports the card as as a TXN,PC11210-00. Card mounts as Orinoco™.

With the Orinoco 7.1 sw it sees the card and allows me to access my wireless network.

Not trying to start an arguement I'm just curious because there were a number of versions of Wavelan cards and I had forgotten that there was also a Bronze card and some confusion as to what works and what doesn't. I found through a lot of trial and error that the Orinoco cards were happiest with their own sw. At least with the Wavelan Turbo Silver and 2Wire cards.

http://www.wifihowto.org/?mo=HowTo;Item=14

An eBay seller posted this info here, which is interesting.

http://www.mattcintosh.com/ebay/notice.htm

Kevin

Edited- Wavelan Turbo Silver