Wireless

Router, yes--as long as it follows the same standard (e.g., 802.11b/g). Cards must have a driver that works. They are not plug and play--Apple probably didn't include them in the OS because they wanted people to use Apple hardware.

You'll find some good info at MacWindows.

Chris

Re: Wireless

Originally posted by starsaber13
Will any router and card work with a mac?

Click to expand...

Help Apple out and get all Airport/Airport Extreme cards and base stations
Not necessarily all of them but a lot, yes.

Is there an airport extreme card for the first rev MDD Power Macs? I want to get an airport extreme base station for my 17" and want to use my PowerMac with it but as far as I can tell Apple only has a 802.11b card for them which is too slow for my taste.

Originally posted by rundevilrun
Is there an airport extreme card for the first rev MDD Power Macs? I want to get an airport extreme base station for my 17" and want to use my PowerMac with it but as far as I can tell Apple only has a 802.11b card for them which is too slow for my taste.

Click to expand...

well, i'm assuming you realize the pointlessness of 802.11g in most situations, as it only increases performance in file transfers on a LAN, and even then only noticably when transferring very large files often.

That said, there's no Apple made 802.11g cards for non-current powermacs, you'll have to find a 3rd party solution. which may or may not exist quite yet...

pnw

Help Apple out and get all Airport/Airport Extreme cards and base stations

Click to expand...

This is all good if you can afford it. It is quite a few $$$ to the competition. Is it really tha much better?

Originally posted by paulwhannel
well, i'm assuming you realize the pointlessness of 802.11g in most situations, as it only increases performance in file transfers on a LAN, and even then only noticably when transferring very large files often.

pnw

Click to expand...

That's exactly why I want g instead of b, I have a pc with an analog capture card that I use for capturing video and also rendering/encoding. Transferring DV over 11b is just painful. g is still slower than my 100M lan but I could tolerate it.

It would be nice if Apple made a PCI airport extreme card but it'll probably won't matter since I'll probably be first in line for a 970 power mac if they show up.

if your transferring video I would suggest GigaBit ethernet or regulat 10/100 wired connections It will go considerably faster.

Another Airport Question

This may be slightly offtopic, but here's another Wi-fi question for the Mac-gurus in this forum.

I'm planning to get a powerbook as soon as i've saved up for it (first mac ). I also wanted to get an Airport base station, but had a few questions that maybe someone here can answer.

1) Can you use the Airport to connect to the net using a USB broadband modem. (Its an Alcatel modem and as far as I know they do have OS X drivers)

2) I have a PC laptop that i'd also like to use with the Airport. Is there a PC Wi-fi card that i can use with Airport?

3) (not quite related to Airport per se) If i have both my PC and mac using WiFi can I mount my PC as a fat32 drive on my mac? (I want to use my pc as an mp3 server thats also connected to my stereo and tv. and want to be able to access the mp3s from my mac too. )

2: yes, any that stick to spec b/g should be fine
3: yes

do you think that there will ever be an adapter to use airport extreme on and older system??? (this can include third party)

Originally posted by steeleclipse
do you think that there will ever be an adapter to use airport extreme on and older system??? (this can include third party)

Click to expand...

of course, it's a way to make money. big demand for it coming up. Look for the usual mac network companies to have a PCI card out soon and probably a USB card for non-PCI computers... i really don't know if they'll make any that go in the Airport card slot, no one seems to know if it's fast enough...

and zaid, the base station will act as a router and will plug directly into the cable modem. Any 802.11b cards will have access to it. It will also act as a wireless hub, so networking will be available.

pnw