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

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

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.



"mm" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>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
>
> If you are inclined to email me
> for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

Th information you need is here

http://www.penmachine.com/techie/airport1400.html

"mm" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>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
>
> If you are inclined to email me
> for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 16:39:44 +0100, "That Bloke" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Th information you need is here
>
>http://www.penmachine.com/techie/airport1400.html

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.
http://www.macwireless.com/html/prod.../11bPCCard.php

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
http://www.macwireless.com/html/help...patibility.php 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.)



>"mm" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>>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

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

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

On Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:54:23 +0100, "That Bloke" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

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

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?

>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.

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.

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

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.

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

Too late.

>eddie
>


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

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


"mm" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:54:23 +0100, "That Bloke" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>>The browsers that run on System 8 and 9 will not work on a lot of new web
>>pages.
>
> 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?
>
>>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.
>
> 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.
>
>>You will need a wireless card
>>Extra RAM
>>A copy of System X.
>
> 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.
>
>>A wireless equiped G4 laptop will be cheaper than that and a lot faster.
>
> Too late.
>
>>eddie
>>
>
>
> If you are inclined to email me
> for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)