The (original) Airport card is essentially the same
(internally and performance-wise) as the Lucent PCMCIA
cards, except the pin/antenna configurations are
different. Although I have no direct experience, it
seems from what I have read that the older PBs and the
original iBook have the best range w/Airport cards. I
don't know about a comparison between Airport and
PCMCIA cards.
(IIRC, don't the later versions of the Airport sw
update the encription firmware in the card to 128
bit?)
For the cost (!!) of Airport cards on eBay, though, a
wireless USB may be the better solution. The D-Link
DWL-122 was, I believe, the only officially supported
USB wirless stick for the Mac (the Belkin F5D6050 was
supported, too, but it's not a stick, but a wired unit
with antenna - works great on my original Bondi iMac),
and only had OS X drivers. Some of these are available
on eBay for 1/3 the cost of an Airport card (!). The
successor, the DWL-G122, does NOT have Mac drivers,
and I believe is a different chip set.
Oops, forgot about the USB stick from MacWirless.com
for $100 - they say up front that some people have had
problems with the OS X driver. Check their site:
http://www.macwireless.com/html/products/11g_11b_cards/11bUSB.html
There are a couple other USB sticks available with
hacked drivers; I'll see if I can dig up more if
you're interested. Ralink Corp has come up with some
OS X drivers for USB wireless parts that use their
chipset:
http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm
You might check their forums for info on the brands
supported.
Here's another site for wireless cards/USB sticks with
available driver support under OS X:
http://home.earthlink.net/~metaphyzx/Wireless.htm
I'm exploring the same option for a Tangerine iBook I
just bought off eBay w/o an Airport card (should have
held out for one that had the card). Mac OS 9 support
is *especially* difficult to find for 3rd party USB
sticks. I think the macwireless stick is the only one
with OS 9 support.
Regards,
Bob Eye
Dallas, TX
P.S. If anyone has a good source of Airport cards for
a *reasonable* price, please forward. Thanks.
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hello all
I'lm about to switch my e-mail over to a G4 Cube ans
I want to have a powerbook that will share the same
mail files.
The concept is to store the mail files on a CF card
in a USB reader attached to the Cube.
For portable use I'll plug the card into a powerbook
and pick up wherever I left off.
Unfortunately I can't do this with my Lombard since
the wireless card occupies the sole card slot so I'm
considering trading up to a Pismo.
My question is, how does the internal Airport card
compare to a PC wireless card (like the Cisco I'm
currently using).
I'm more interested in range (the cisco card won't
work in a few rooms) than speed.
I guess the original airport card doesn't support
more advanced encryption, not a problem here at home
but possibly a consideration when travelling.
Thanks
Andrew in Ann Arbor
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