Searching for USB Wireless for OS 9/X

ROFL. A vendor that has an OS9 wireless USB device in their current product line ?

USB 1 or USB 2 ?

If you went PCMCIA wireless adapter, we may be able to help.
If you went PCI wireless, we might be able to help.
If you went Ethernet wireless adapter, we might be able to help.

Maybe start your search at everymac.com, or xlr8yourmac.com, a "wikipedia" of upgrading older Macs.

Belkin always had good Mac support, expecially for wireless. They may have something, but it won't be in their current product line-up.

Oh look, 10 seconds on a google search finds the "Belkin F5D6050", they're even for sale on Amazon. Not cheap though by todays standards, but cheap as far as OS9 wireless goes.

Honestly, if you're willing to attach some enormous device on the end of a USB cable to your Mac, use an Ethernet bridge instead, you'll get 802.11n and it'll be half the price.

Which wireless encryption ?

Original AirPort card in your Pismo only supports 40-bit WEP in OS9. If you upgrade to the last version of AirPort software in OS9.2.2, it can support 128-bit WEP.

WPA / WPA2 / etc will never happen with an original AirPort card.

All I can think off that would work is one of the Asanta AeroLAN cards. Not cheap, and it would take a while to find one 2nd hand on eBay. You would also be limited to 802.11b because of the speed of the PCMCIA card slot.

There used to be a definitive list, but now it's only available on archive.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060626150203/http://home.earthlink.net/~metaphyzx/W ireless.htm

Bluetooth for Mac on an USB stick

I used this for many years for connecting to my old desktop G4, and i guess i might have used it on OS 9.2.x too. Used it with my "fancy" *Nokia 6230i* with the impressive 2G network (ref- http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6230i-1087.php), mostly for photo transfers, but also with BluePhoneElite managing my SMS messages, backing them up to my Mac, the important ones. Worked like a dream, mostly.

Just to day i removed it from my USB HUB to day, where it was still connected to an active up and going G4, where it worked well also in OS X up to OS 10.4.11 (haven't updated the G4 further, since it only is in use besides my new iMac.)

Point is, this is a version 1 USB, but it also works with USB 2 devices, as is my experience with USB 1 and 2. I may run USB 1 on USB 2 devices, but only with the speed of the version standard.

The USB Bluetooth stick i used is: D-Link Model No: DBT-120. It got the MacUser (magazine) awards of 2002. I did a search at search.yippy.com (D-Link DBT-120) and found it here http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=34
...Since my early version it's updated to USB 2 standard, but it may well work still for older Macs running OS 9.x.

Further search for buying some to day showed Amazon on the top of th pirice list, at $ 79.95!!!
- On the D-Link homepage you also find links for reatilers, and then the prices varies from $23 to $ 40, shown in the javascript pop-up window for the retailers.

Did think of Bluetooth, but the Op wants to "take the Pismo downstairs" so it looks like it has to be wireless (or a long Ethernet cable).

Use the list in the archive.org link provided, there are many more options. Remember you're looking for OS9 compatibility and a PCMCIA interface. So there are about 4 Asante AeroLAN cards on the list (product name ALnnnn) but not all of them are what you are looking for. I think there are also other Asanta AL cards, but for PC only.

Anything else ? remember you have a PCMCIA card slot, not a PC card slot or CardBus slot, there's a speed difference apparently. I'm worried already that the wireless reception downstairs will be awful due to the lack of a sizable antenna. At least theAirPort card had access to the internal antenna.

Well not strictly true.

PCMCIA was the original technology, named after the group that devised it. This is a 16-bit interface, aka Type I.
PC Card is the second generation of such cards, At least Type II, which you have. It is either 16-bit or 24-bit and they were thicker than Type I PCMCIA cards. PC Card is also the name used to describe the form factor.
There were also Type III and Type IV PC Cards, all getting thicker.
CardBus is the fifth generation of such cards.

So are they all the same ? No, definitely not.
Can you use all of them in your old PowerBook ? No, I don't think so either.

Again, use the definitive list from archive.org link and look for something that satisfes your OS requirements.

Let us know what you find, buy and how it works.

Jeez, well done and well done very quickly.

Yeah I have also used the Orinoco Gold in my PowerBook G3 and G4, it should be fine. And it should be a LOT better than a USB solution.