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| Viewing Page 1 of 1 (Total Posts: 17) |
| Author | Comment |
Robin Springall
 IP: 83.146.62.12 Jan 9, 08 - 8:38 AM |
G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Friend of mine has a grey G3 Powerbook running Panther, but it has no Airport, and she wants to add some kind of wireless LAN adaptor. I've got a 3COM OfficeConnect Wireless 54Mbps 11g PC Card which she could have, but I can't find any Mac drivers for it. Any ideas where I could get either... OSX drivers for this card An Airport card that will go in her machine Some other solution Many thanks Robin |
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Nick
IP: 67.130.224.4 Jan 9th, 2008 - 3:48 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
No, your friend's G3 doesn't have a Airport Ready, so you won't have an Airport card installed inside the machine... But PC cards don't work well on Mac's,and usually don't have a slot for them. Although, you can get the original Airport card off eBay, it just slides in. (Sorry for mentioning eBay, I think it's a cheap way to get your computer stuff, but it's really your only hope...) There hard to find these days... |
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Robin Springall
IP: 84.9.108.35 Jan 10th, 2008 - 3:16 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Thank you Nick. Seems there are two or three PC cards that claim to have Mac drivers: I'll have a hunt on eBay. Daft that the 3COM card doesn't support Mac, though. |
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Robin Springall
IP: 84.9.108.35 Jan 10th, 2008 - 3:20 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
LOL! Now she says her Powerbook battery won't hold its charge - suppose I'll have to hunt for one of those as well, or perhaps she'd just be better off with a newer laptop. |
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Nick
IP: 67.130.224.4 Jan 10th, 2008 - 3:27 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Yes she probably will! If she keeps having problems, I would suggest a G4 PB. (That holds it's charge, and it has built-in Airport!) G3 batts are hard to find as well. It's really like the G3 isn't supported anymore. (Although it is...) Good luck!:) (Wow it's amazing it's running Panther!) |
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Tom Lee
IP: 66.237.74.194 Jan 10th, 2008 - 5:44 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Odd things about the OP. First, there is no such thing as a grey G3 Powerbook. All G3 Powerbooks are black, except for the very first one (the "Kanga"), which was basically a 3400c with a G3 CPU shoehorned in there. Its case is brown, not gray. Adding wireless is very easy as long as you select one of the few mac-compatible WiFi cards. Your best choice by far is an Orinoco (silver or gold), which is also sold under a number of other brandnames (originally Lucent, then Agere; Dell rebranded some of these, too, among others). Another option is a Proxim Skyline card. Both of these have OS 8/OS 9 drivers available, and will function in any G3 Powerbook. Indeed, they'll even work in a 1400. And with the right PCMCIA cardcage, even a 520/540 can use these cards. |
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Tom Lee
IP: 66.237.74.194 Jan 10th, 2008 - 5:47 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
If you're actually talking about a G4 powerbook (the titanium ones, which could be called gray), then you have different options. The Orinoco/Skyline ones will still work fine (OS X drivers are available). Also, check out IOexperts; they have created OS X drivers for many, many cards. It'll cost you some, but their drivers allow you to select from a much larger universe of cards. |
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Nick
IP: 67.130.224.4 Jan 11th, 2008 - 12:22 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Does it really matter if it's grey or not? Yes, it can be mistaken for being grey if it's black... I do think your right Tom, although Airport is the best bet. Hooking up things like you mentioned on a 540? That's probably really hard to do. Because it would work on a G3, but the apps are worst then on a PB running 7.5.5 compared to Panther. Yes, it would work, but it would take a lot more time, and more expensive! (Even the Kanga was black in a way):) |
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Tom Lee
IP: 66.237.74.194 Jan 11th, 2008 - 3:53 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
The reason it can matter is that the different models have electrically different slots. The G4 Tibooks have a normal external cardbus slot which will accept third-party cards gracefully (availability of drivers is another thing), and an internal airport-only slot. The G3 powerbooks have external slots only, with the sole exception of the Pismo, which has an internal airport-only slot in addition to an external cardbus slot. And if the "grey G3 powerbook" is really a graphite clamshell ibook, then there's only an internal airport-only slot. So, you see that getting the model identified right is more than just being a stickler for detail; it actually makes a huge difference on how to get WiFi on your laptop. That's the reason for belaboring the point. |
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Tom Lee
IP: 66.237.74.194 Jan 11th, 2008 - 3:57 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Oh, and a bit OT, getting wireless running on a 520/540 is actually easy once you have all the pieces. The only hard part is to find the rare, expensive card cage. But once you have the card cage, then you have a pair of pcmcia slots into which an Orinoco card may be inserted. System 7-compatible drivers exist, and work well. THen you can surf wirelessly on a laptop that was made long before WiFi was a gleam in its inventors' eyes... |
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Nick
IP: 67.130.224.4 Jan 11th, 2008 - 4:58 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Wow, pretty cool that you could do that on a 540/520. Although, I think he was refering to a PB G3, not a Titanium... (Which is silver):). The G3 was the last PB to be black (Steve hates black). The wireless internet on the Pismo was not immedietly installed, I wish he told us the model he was using, but every G3 Powerbook had some kind of wireless connection. The Clamshell iBook? That obviously did have a Airport ready, because it's related to the iMac, which had original Airport. No fancy cards are going to fit in the G3, but the original Airport card will.:) (Now I'm confused what model he's using) |
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Robin Springall
IP: 84.9.108.35 Jan 11th, 2008 - 5:10 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Hello chaps, I've found a Motorola PCMCIA card on eBay which is meant to be Airport-compatible. Dead cheap, too (£10) because it's not Extreme: shouldn't matter, that old laptop isn't either! |
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Tom Lee
IP: 66.237.74.194 Jan 11th, 2008 - 6:17 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Yep, the confusion was why I brought up the issue. To provide accurate and relevant help, I need to know what the actual system is. :) Since there's no such thing as a grey G3 'book, we can only speculate in a vacuum. Robin, what is it *really*? |
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Nick
IP: 67.130.224.4 Jan 12th, 2008 - 6:16 AM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
That's what I would like to know, the model (ex: Pismo, Lombard, Kanga, Wallstreet) but congrats on your finding!:) |
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Robin Springall
IP: 84.9.34.93 Jan 13th, 2008 - 12:05 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
I didn't know this when I posted the original message, but I've since found out that it's a Lombard. |
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Tom Lee
IP: 171.67.73.10 Jan 14th, 2008 - 11:41 AM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
Thanks for the clarification. Few people would call it gray, hence the initial confusion. As long as you have Mac-compatible drivers for that WiFi card, you should be good to go. Good luck! |
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Sludgedragon
IP: 71.34.123.237 Feb 7th, 2008 - 9:09 PM |
Re: G3 Powerbook and PC Card NIC
I have a Lombard that runs Airport on OS 9 with an Orinoco silver card, and on OS 10.3.9 with Airport 4.something, with a Linksys WPC54G 802.11G card. Depends on what OS is running on the 'book. Mine is partitioned to boot to 9.2, 10.3.9, and 8.6. I have not tried to get it to wireless on 8.6, but since I understand an iMac DV with 8.6 could use an original Airport card, I suppose it's possible to use Airport on that, too. I like Airport better than other drivers, it's smoother, I think. |
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