How to use wireless on a Mac G3

A friend bought a Mac Powerbook G3 laptop, with Mac OS 8.7. It has a network port and 2 pcmicia slots, one atop the other, but apparently it can take more than that to connect to the net wirelessly. For example, to use a wireless card.

What does he have to do? Is the fact significant that most wireless cards I've looked at say nothing about Mac on them?

Thanks

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Reply to
mm
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Most wireless PCMCIA and USB adaptors are looking for the System X Operating system. You need to do a lot of work to get ther ewith that machine.

Reply to
That Bloke

Th information you need is here

Reply to
That Bloke

Wow! This is exactly what we need. Thanks a lot for finding it, and for posting.

You're a fine bloke.

I'm sending a copy of this to my friend.

Arnold, note that it says you don't even have to upgrade the OS.

IN some cases you will need more software that comes with the card, or can be downloaded, and copied to your laptop via a floppy or CD, or via my network which you could hook into with a cable. But you wouldn't need an entire OS. The trouble with the Wavelan Orinoco cards might be that so far they are all 802.11b and most routers now transmit 802.11g, or BOTH. I thought any that had g also transmitted b, but at the dorm I was told since my card only had b, I needed a newer card. Of course he could easily have been wrong. It rarely worked with the new b/g card either. (So most of the time I plugged directly into their cable, which worked just fine.)

But they are cheap. This one has 31 hours to go and the price is one cent and 7 dollars for shipping! Your pcmcia (pc) slots look like mine from the outside, but for the card below, they are talking about needing an adapter for some models of MAC. We should try to put one of my cards in your slot and see if it fits, without damaging the slot or the card. ??

The article also points to the MacWireless page which has two models it seems will work right now for you, for 70 and 90 dollars depending on strength. I realize that's more than you paid for the whole computer, 45 dollars! Of course you'll be able to use it on your next Mac Laptop, unless it's so new wireless comes built-in, or it has OS X 10.3 or higher. But it works with Windows, so plenty of people will want it.

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But I looked on ebay.

They don't have that one (the author of the webpage said they weren't common in the used market), but I saved the search and they'll email me if one is listed. Too late for this trip but maybe in time for the next. And they do have the original Apple Airport card but I don't think it will work.

The MacWireless page

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only lists two kinds of G3 PowerBooks May99 to Feb00 with a Bronze Keyboard, code name Lombard, cpu speed 333 or 400; and FEb00 to Jan01, code name Pismo, cpu speed 400 or 500. It sounds like they are planning the Normandy Invasion. It works with Pismo but not Lombard. I don't think your keyboard is bronze, so maybe there is a Powerbook G3 that precedes that one, but it's not on the list. (Here it is, somewhere else. It's called "original" and the card I give at the top will work with it, but not this one.)

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Reply to
mm

The browsers that run on System 8 and 9 will not work on a lot of new web pages.

Unless you have a free copy od System X and the extra memory required to run it. II would buy a more recent machine it will work out a lot cheaper in the long run.

You will need a wireless card Extra RAM A copy of System X.

A wireless equiped G4 laptop will be cheaper than that and a lot faster.

eddie

Reply to
That Bloke

So he can't just download the latest copy of Netscape or Firefox? :) I really had no idea of how Macs worked. The system won't crash like it did on PC's, will it, just because they use new html instructions that it doesn't recognize? The crashing was because of sneaky stuff by Microsoft, right?

Too late. I just bought this one for him. At the biggest hamfest of the year, various vendors sold more than 200 pcs, but there were only

2 vendors with Macs, totally 4 machines. One of them was also a Powerbook G3 with a slightly faster cpu, and 3 times the price. (120 instead of 40.) He showed no signs of going to ebay to look for a cheap one.

The webpage you provided seemed to imply that he didn't need the last, and I didn't see about extra ram either, although I haven't read the whole thing. I think it has about 250 Meg now.

Too late. :(

If you are inclined to email me for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

Reply to
mm

The website was talking about getting wireless working with OS 8.6.

As I said newer browsers will not instal on OS 8.6 or 9.x

Therefore you may need OS X. To get a more useful browser. In that case you may have to increase the RAM to get good performance.

At the price you got the machine for you could always get that on ebay.

eddie

Reply to
That Bloke

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