cheap portable wifi solution

hi, im a student on a real tight budget looking for a portable wifi
solution such as a pda, im just wondering can anyone tell me of the
cheapest option available. i have been looking at cheap pdas on ebay
but they dont seem to have cf slot for a wifi adaptor. im just
wondering also how have other people got on looking for cheap wifi
solutions. i was hoping to use my p133 laptop but all wifi pcmcia
adaptors seem to require 32bit cardbus and mine is 16bit.

thanks for any advice

kaine

On 18 Jul 2004 12:11:52 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) (kaine)
wrote:

>hi, im a student on a real tight budget looking for a portable wifi
>solution such as a pda, im just wondering can anyone tell me of the
>cheapest option available. i have been looking at cheap pdas on ebay
>but they dont seem to have cf slot for a wifi adaptor. im just
>wondering also how have other people got on looking for cheap wifi
>solutions.

Well, you must certainly be impoverished as the shift key appears to
be broken on your keyboard and you are obviously unable to afford a
repair or replacement.

>i was hoping to use my p133 laptop but all wifi pcmcia
>adaptors seem to require 32bit cardbus and mine is 16bit.

Wrong. There are still some 16 bit WiFI cards available. 32 bit Card
Bus devices are easy to spot because they do NOT have the gold plated
grounding stripe next to the PCMCIA connector. Some candidates are
Orinoco Silver and Gold, and the cheap cards unloaded by various
online catalog stores. Looking at:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati....asp?CatId=367
I see about 6 candidates that are non-Card Bus type. Here's one for
$10 after a $10 rebate:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...1036&CatId=367

Also, if your laptop has a USB port, the various manufactories seem to
be dumping the 802.11b USB radios and replaceing them with 802.11g
equivalents. I've bought DWL-122 USB radios for $20.

Ebay shows about 3500 likely devices under the Wireless Networking
catagory.

http://computers.listings.ebay.com/W...istingItemList

Anyway, you should be able to find a 16 bit card in there somewhere
leaving you with enough money to afford a new keyboard with a working
shift key.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 17:15:46 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Wrong. There are still some 16 bit WiFI cards available. 32 bit Card
>Bus devices are easy to spot because they do NOT have the gold plated
>grounding stripe next to the PCMCIA connector.

Argh. I goofed. The 32bit Card Bus devices are the ones with the
gold grounding strip. It's the 16 bit devices that don't have the
grounding strip. (Never yack on the phone while writing messages).

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

> hi, im a student on a real tight budget looking for a portable wifi
> solution such as a pda,

Does your laptop computer able to use a USB adapter?
That would probably be the what you want.