On Dec 8, 2011, at 5:58 AM, Gerald Cornish wrote:
I have found some cardbus cards on the net but have so far not found
a Mac compatible card nor have I found Mac drivers.
I suspect this will be a difficult proposition. AFAIK your idea of
using a cardbus PCMCIA card is the only possibility. There might be
two ways of going about it: The easiest and most practical would be to
get a USB 2.0 cardbus card that works with Tiger 10.4.11, and then get
a USB 2.0 802.11n dongle that also works with Tiger 10.4.11. This is a
little bit of a kludge, having a dongle sticking out the side, but it
has the added functionality of giving you USB 2.0 slots.
As for 802.11n, there are many vendors & chipsets that work with OS X,
but some are Intel only, and some require newer OS X than 10.4.11.
It's always nice to have it be "Airport compatible" meaning that it
uses Apple's Airport software rather than it's own third-party
software. This means you should be looking for a 802.11n device that
uses either a Broadcom or an Atheros chipset. Almost all Broadcom
chipsets are "Airport compatible" with a slight bit of tweaking.
If you can find an actual 802.11n Broadcom cardbus card that's correct
for the Pismo (note there are many variations of Cardbus cards), then
this might be a better solution, but I suspect it would also be harder
to get working, and have a greater risk of not working.
I'd look for a USB 2.0 Cardbus card and a USB Broadcom 802.11n dongle.
If you're lucky, you'll find some cheap. In USB 2.0, stay away from
VIA chipsets unless you want to add their drivers. I think the NEC
chipsets are Mac compatible, but I'm not sure.
Here's a cheap USB 2.0 card for $2.66:
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0027Q4HXG/>
There are many cheap USB WIFI 80211n adapters, but most require extra
drivers & software for OS X, (i.e. they're NOT Broadcom or Atheros
chipsets). Some companies only make software for INTEL Macs, so check
to be sure there's PPC Mac software. It's likely that a Leopard 10.5
driver would work in Tiger, but not certain. Ralink is one company
that has some OS X drivers, so perhaps this cheap card would work?:
802.11n USB 2.0 WIFI adapter $5.72:
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BAI7TQ/>
Here's a TINY RealTek adapter that has OS X 10.4 Tiger software
available:
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26PMO/>
Software here:
<http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=48&PFid=48&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#RTL8188CUS
>
There are plenty of others available, the trick is, which ones work.
In my experience, MOST can be made to work, but it can be trying. I
try and stick with Broadcom or Atheros chipsets and use Apple's native
Airport software, but finding a Broadcom or Atheros USB WIFI adapter
seems to be difficult, and likely more expensive.
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