Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Wallstreet PC card WiFi

I'm trying to get a no-name WiFi card running in my Wallstreet G3. It isn't recognized and the CD which came with it has only Windows drivers. However, an icon shows up on the desktop, labeled Rtl8139. A web search found that's a Realtek chip [www.realtek.com.tw] and there are MacOS drivers there for OS9 and OSX. So far so good. Installed the drivers. Still doesn't recognize the card. This is under OS 9.2.2. Under OS 10.2.8, plugging the card in causes a kernel panic.

Now - the card doesn't appear in System Profiler (which I need to find out the card's manufacturer's ID). Further probing with Tattle Tale reveals that "PC Card Services" are not present, and PCMCIA is dimmed. The card powers up normally, ejects, etc. and the icon appears on the desktop. Any ideas what's going on? Is there a piece of the system missing, and if so where do I get it? The OS was freshly installed from a full 9.2.1 CD and updated via software update.

I don't have another PC Card to compare; the only other gadget I have with a PCMCIA slot is a Newton, and let's not go there right now. I know the right thing to do is get an Orinoco card, but the PC Card slots not showing up in Profile has me puzzled. The slots do show up in System Profile under OS X (empty, of course - plugging this card in crashes OS X). If somebody with a Wallstreet could look in System Profile (OS 9) and see if their PC Card slots show up, that would help.

iBook 800 MHz, Wallstreet 292 MHz, Beige G3, Mac OS X (10.4.6), other Apples dating from 1977.

Posted on Jun 17, 2006 8:21 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jun 17, 2006 1:34 PM

William,

Apple uses the protocol 'PC Card Manager 3.0' (or Card & Sockets Service 3.0) for its PCMCIA card slot and the Wallstreet does support this along with the PB 2400 and 3400 and all newer powerbooks. It is possible the wifi card software does not have this software for OS9.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24219

I would imagine OSX has some form of this under another name.

Under 9.x on my Wallstreet, no information is listed for the PCMCIA slot under Devices and Volumes; if I insert my USB 1.1 PC card and wait until it mounts on the desktop, then quit/relaunch Apple System Profiler, there is a report of a 'USB 0' and 'no devices found on this bus'. If I connect my USB mouse and relaunch ASP, the mouse is also reported.

If the wifi card is an 802.11g / 54Mbps, it is not supported under 9.x, only the slower (b) 11Mbps.

If the card shows up on the desktop and you can eject it, the PCMCIA card cage is probably fine. Would an incompatible wifi card cause OSX to crash? I don't know. I do know a bad/damaged PC card can cause a freeze/crash but that is not happening in 9.x.

Will TattleTale report on the chipset in the wifi card in 9.x? See if it mentions Orinoco or Atheros or Broadcom or Prism or Amtel or Aironet or Agere. Knowing which chipset the card uses may help find an alternative driver.
17 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jun 17, 2006 1:34 PM in response to William Spragens

William,

Apple uses the protocol 'PC Card Manager 3.0' (or Card & Sockets Service 3.0) for its PCMCIA card slot and the Wallstreet does support this along with the PB 2400 and 3400 and all newer powerbooks. It is possible the wifi card software does not have this software for OS9.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24219

I would imagine OSX has some form of this under another name.

Under 9.x on my Wallstreet, no information is listed for the PCMCIA slot under Devices and Volumes; if I insert my USB 1.1 PC card and wait until it mounts on the desktop, then quit/relaunch Apple System Profiler, there is a report of a 'USB 0' and 'no devices found on this bus'. If I connect my USB mouse and relaunch ASP, the mouse is also reported.

If the wifi card is an 802.11g / 54Mbps, it is not supported under 9.x, only the slower (b) 11Mbps.

If the card shows up on the desktop and you can eject it, the PCMCIA card cage is probably fine. Would an incompatible wifi card cause OSX to crash? I don't know. I do know a bad/damaged PC card can cause a freeze/crash but that is not happening in 9.x.

Will TattleTale report on the chipset in the wifi card in 9.x? See if it mentions Orinoco or Atheros or Broadcom or Prism or Amtel or Aironet or Agere. Knowing which chipset the card uses may help find an alternative driver.

Jun 17, 2006 4:19 PM in response to jpl

Thanks. Searching on PCMCIA and PC Card had not turned up that article. It sounds like Apple is saying that the PC Card Services are not present *in the driver* rather than not being loaded in the OS. The chip set in this card seems to be Realtek, since they make a "RTL8139 series controller" for ethernet. The drivers for OS9.2 and OS10.2 they have on their web site may be for PCI cards, not PCMCIA, or just may not work. Their "Read Me" file says to look for the card in System Profiler, find the manufacturer's ID and card ID, then edit the driver by searching for the OEM ID strings and replacing them with what System Profiler reports. Since the card doesn't show up at all, I can't tell if that's what I need to do. I think at this point, I just need to find a known compatible WiFi card. This one was on sale for $12 new because it is 802.11b only, and everybody wants 802.11g now. Took a chance and lost. Maybe one of my friends can use it on a PC laptop. Problem is, very few cards say on the box which chip set they contain.

Jun 17, 2006 8:29 PM in response to William Spragens

William,

Since you may be looking for inexpensive or even used wifi PC cards, here are some third-party drivers that list the PC cards they support in both 9.x and 10.x.

http://www.ioxperts.com/
http://www.orangeware.com/
http://www.macsense.com/product/networking/aerouni.html

This is freeware for OSX and 802.11b cards only:
http://wirelessdriver.sourceforge.net/

Jun 18, 2006 8:14 PM in response to jpl

Further possible enlightenment - Orangeware support says that some G3 Powerbooks have a bug in the CardBus ROM which causes a lock up when a CardBus card is inserted. Apparently CardBus cards are identifiable by a brass strip next to the PC connector. Natcherly, I am trying to use a CardBus doohickey.

I'm confused about the difference between CardBus, PC Card, and PCMCIA, but it appears Wallstreets and Lombards and some others need PCMCIA or PC Cards. Discussion at:

http://www.macintouch.com/%20http://www.slashdot.org/wirelesslanreader18.html

Jun 19, 2006 8:53 AM in response to William Spragens

William,

PCMCIA is the older 16-bit protocol while CardBus is the newer 32-bit protocol. Apple natively supports both PCMCIA and CardBus starting with the Wallstreet; the faster CardBus can pass data in 32-bit chunks. CardBus cards can be identified by a little notch cut into one corner of the pin end of the card. I believe Apple uses the Texas Instruments PCI1130 PCI to CardBus controller mounted on the logic board.

Since a wireless card like Orinoco's 802.11b PC card can be used in even the PB1400, a non-CardBus machine, it must be a 16-bit PCMCIA card.

I have not read of the CardBus ROM issue, but am interested. Could you point me to that article?

Jun 19, 2006 10:46 AM in response to William Spragens

William,

There is a big difference between the Wallstreet, Lombard, and Pismo...I'll try to summarize.

Wallstreet: has the so-called "Old World ROM"; all ROM instructions are stored in the ROM chip;

Lombard: first-generation New World ROM or ROM-in-RAM; some ROM instructions were moved to software and these load at startup in a file called MacOS ROM; supposedly faster performance and of course some changes can easily be made in software.

Pismo: second-generation New World ROM where full implementation was made to the new standard...no legacy ports (SCSI, serial, ADB), bootable USB port (9.x only), FireWire, Startup Manager, and much improved firmware which you could upgrade to version 4.1.8.

If the RealTek wifi card has firmware and/or ROM issues in the Wallstreet, I can see where these might disappear with the Lombard and/or Pismo. However, there are many, many cards that work just fine in the Wallstreet so I am guessing the issue really lies with RealTek's card.

Jun 19, 2006 12:30 PM in response to jpl

I'm sure you're right, the Realtek card is incompatible with a Wallstreet, and probably also with a Lombard, since we are dealing with the code which inits the PC slots. I am going to look for another wireless card, PCMCIA 16-bit type, and if chance presents, I'll try another CardBus card, like a modem and see what transpires. These transitional machines, like the beige and early B&W G3s, are a bit touchy. Some things work, some don't.

I'm considering a MacBook, but those are transitional machines also, going from New World, Open Firmware, PPC to yet another boot sequence and CPU. I wonder what kinks will show up as the rest of the world switches to the new architecture.

Jun 19, 2006 2:28 PM in response to William Spragens

William,

I have also considered the MacBook; as far as the historical Apple company is concerned, it is a tremendous piece of hardware for the price.

If you want 802.11g / 54Mbps speeds, I believe these only come as CardBus. I think I also mentioned that 9.x does not support (g) cards. The Orinoco Gold or Lucent WaveLAN Gold (b) cards do work well with 9.2.x and Apple's AirPort 2.0.4 driver. This same card can also be used under 10.x but will require a third-party driver.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120120

Jun 19, 2006 5:38 PM in response to jpl

I'm up and running over my Airport (graphite) base station. Went back to the Discount Electronics store and swapped the no name 32-bit CardBus for a 16-bit Netgear MA401, which works with the IOExperts driver. Thanks for all the pointers.

I too am really impressed with the MacBook's value for money. Considering the original Apple][ with 4K of RAM cost more than it does, back when you could order a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke and get change from a dollar bill. Or the original Mac Portable at $7300.00 (with 40MB hard drive). OTOH, nothing will ever match the thrill of taking home my very own computer! It felt like going to sleep in 1977 and waking up on the Enterprise.

Jun 24, 2006 8:42 PM in response to jpl

More experiments: Picked up a Belkin F5U512-APL Firewire CardBus adapter on eBay. It is 32-bit type II CardBus, according to the package, and it works without a hitch or any need to install drivers, except that it and any attached devices do not show up in System Profile under OS 9.2.2. Under OS 10.2.8 it doesn't show up until something is plugged into a Firewire port. So the message from Orangeware tech support that cardbus 32-bit devices are not compatible with Wallstreets must apply to wireless adapters only, or may just be in error.

The NetGear MA401RA WiFi adapter doesn't show up in system profile under PCI devices either; it shows up as a second built-in ethernet port under networks.

The last odd thing about System Profiler is it reports 8 MB video RAM under OS X. In general System Profiler seems to be flaky on the Wallstreet, whereas it's spot on on most other Macs.

As for Tattle Tech, it still reports that PC Card Services are not present, and the PC Card menu is greyed out, though the cards I have now obviously work.

Jun 24, 2006 10:16 PM in response to William Spragens

William,

The only explanation I have for Orangeware's statement is that they are referring to the original Powerbook G3 which did not support CardBus; the Wallstreet does natively support CardBus.

I have a no-name FireWire PC card with the label "eDrive". In 9.x, the card is not hot-swappable...I must restart with card inserted before it will initialize; however, FireWire devices are hot-swappable once the card is recognized. I also have no ASP report on anything FireWire. In my Wallstreet's 10.4.6, the card mounts properly without restarting, the menu bar PC card icon has only Eject Card available, and the System Profiler reports in the FireWire category: FireWire Bus: Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec. When I connect my FireWire HD, it has a full report on the HD and its three partitions. I also have a PC Cards category and it does report the FireWire PC card

I have you beat...my 10.4.6 System Profiler reports 16 MB of VRAM; I can't wait until 10.5 is released...maybe 32 MB!

Question: Did you install the three FireWire extensions in 9.2.2?

FireWire CardBus Enabler 1.0.1
FireWire Enabler 2.8.5
FireWire Support 2.8.5

I wouldn't worry about PC Card Services; I cannot think of a PC card that would not work under 9.x or 10.x on the Wallstreet (as long as the card has Mac drivers if required).

Jun 24, 2006 11:27 PM in response to jpl

The Firewire OS 9 extensions were installed by default. Yes, they are present.

Now I have a reason to upgrade to Tiger - my Firewire DVD burner is natively supported. Under Jaguar I have to use Toast to burn disks. Wonder what the minimum system for Leopard is going to be?

Last items I need for the Wallstreet are a battery and a proper power adapter. I'm using a 36 Watt Duo power supply now, and that's a bit smaller than the one it's supposed to use. The battery will presumably keep it from forgetting which OS is blessed and what time it is when it's unplugged. I also might want a 12V power adapter for the Firewire card so it can charge my iPod and run 2.5" pocket disk drives.

Jun 25, 2006 3:09 PM in response to jpl

The power on USB is 5V. Firewire carries 12 to 15V if memory serves. In each case there's about 10-15 Watts max available. The input jack on the Firewire card is marked 12V 1Amp max. My pocket FW drive enclosure contains a switching 12 to 5V downconverter, since that's what the 2.5" drive inside uses. If you have an iPod AC adapter for the early FW only models, it puts out 12V at 1A on its Firewire jack.

Wallstreet PC card WiFi

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.