Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part III: Installing a Wireless Network
� MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo
� Mac Pro with AirPort Extreme card option
Some older Macintosh computers may not have an AirPort card installed but
can be equipped with Apple’s AirPort Extreme card (discussed in the preceding
section).You can find a list of these computers at the following URL:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107440. This Web page also
includes a link to another Apple Web page that lists all Macintosh computers
that can use the older AirPort card as well.
Apple computers that are equipped for installation of an AirPort Extreme
card have an antenna built into the body of the computer. When you install
the AirPort card, you attach the AirPort Extreme card to the built-in antenna.
(All radios need an antenna to be able to send and receive radio signals, and
wireless networking cards are no exception.)
If your older Mac doesn’t support AirPort or AirPort Extreme, you can try
using a standard Wi-Fi network adapter with the drivers found at www.
ioxperts.com/devices/devices_80211b.html.
The amazing disappearing AirPort card
The original AirPort card — the one that fits into
all the older G3 and Titanium G4 PowerBooks,
original iBooks, and original iMacs — has been
discontinued by Apple. Not because they aren’t
good guys and not because they don’t want to
sell such cards to their customers. The problem
is that the 802.11b chips inside these cards are
no longer available (the chip vendors are
spending all their time building 802.11g chips
like those found in the AirPort Extreme card).
The result is that cards for these Macs are
extremely rare — the only real source of these
cards is the small number that have been stockpiled
by folks who repair Macs as service parts.
Think back to Econ 101, and you can see how
this situation may drive up prices. We’ve seen
these older cards (which originally cost about
$100) for more than $150 on eBay and on various
reseller Web sites. (They’re nowhere to be
found on Apple’s own site.)
The only other alternative is to find a third-party
Wi-Fi adapter that can work with your older
Mac. For notebook computers such as the
PowerBook, it’s a PC Card adapter (see Chapter
2 for more on this), and for desktop Macs (such
as Power Macs), it’s a PCI card. The AirPort
software built into Mac OS X doesn’t work with
these devices (and almost none of them have a
set of Mac driver software). The solution is to
mate a card with some specialized software
that works with a Macintosh.
The most popular solution here is to find an
802.11b PC or PCI card that works with the
IOXpert 802.11b driver for Mac OS X ($19.95
after a free trial period). This software works
with a large number of 802.11b cards and all
versions of OS X (including the current Tiger
version). Go to www.ioxperts.com/devices/
devices_80211b.html to find out more, to see a
list of compatible (and incompatible) cards, and
to download the trial version.