How do I find out if my Ibook Clamshell G3 has a wireless card

[jrriley3]

Hello,

I bought a G3 Clamshell Ibook today and I don't know how to connect to the net with it. So I did some reseach (btw I know nothing about Mac's nothing at all. This is my first one!!) and there is something about an Airport card. So my question is how do I check to see if my computer has it. If it does then how do I access the net.

If not, please, please tell me there is another way to get wireless on the thing cause I don't think I can install a wireless card on a computer. I would not even know where to begin.

 

[Bennieboy©]

click about this mac on the apple icon top left corner > click more info then select Airport from the menu on the left if it's there, you have it, it not, you dont

 

[jrriley3]

Ah, dang. I'm going to take that as a no, I don't have a wireless card. Are there any USB things I can buy to have wireless...or must I install this?

 

[MrCheeto]

+1 It's just that easy to find out

As well, I hope that your expectations for this notebook are not too high. Understanding that this notebook is 10 years old, you can't expect it to have gigabit ethernet or handle Flash...at more than 1 frame per second.

And if you're using OS 9, you can forget about trying to integrate it in a modern environment at all. Understand that if you're trying to learn how Apple computers work and get a feel for the environment, you will have to install OS X (Oh ess ten) because OS X is different from all other MacOS' by FAR and is the only modern one. Then that raises another problem. You'd have to install at LEAST OS 10.4 to run most modern apps, and it's kind of heavy on the system.

But boy do they last...and aren't they just beautiful?!

Enjoy the iconic original iBook

 

[jrriley3]

I should have research before I bought. I only bought because I wanted to play around with the computer. I really want a Mac, and I thought this was a good way to wet my feet to see if I like it

It is Running Mac OS X Version 10.2.8

 

[Bennieboy©]

you can use a usb wireless device or you could use an airport card, the usb will be cheaper more then likely, but what operating system are you running on your machine, your likely to run into problems with it being too old, to my knowledge you should be able to run Mac OS 10.1-2 on there without much trouble,
Clamshells supporting airport

or you can look on ebay, compatibility is guaranteed but it'll cost more then the usb option,

make sure you buy a original Airport card, not the Airport Extreme model

 

[MrCheeto]

10.2.8!? Wow! By the hair of your hiney you got lucky, that's the first stable release of OS X, haha. Well, at least that's my opinion.

It's a good way to get a feel for Mac OS X, not to mention it's probably one of the fastest versions of OS X on that particular model.

What I recommend you do, if there are files and folders from the previous user strewn across the machine, is create a new user and then delete the previous owner's user.

I don't know how to do this without either the install CD's or the previous user's password, so you may want to search these forums for resetting the system password.

By the way, your version of OS X is called "Jaguar". Today we run Snow Leopard which isn't too different. It's like going from Windows 95 to Windows 2000

Have fun, welcome to the world of Apple

Also, I emailed you

 

[jrriley3]

From what I can tell the person I bought it from deleted everything from the computer. Thee is nothing on here that I can find (granted my finding of things is limited, since I have no idea what I'm doing) but there seems to be no documents and such.

It run's rather faster...start up is slow (SLOW!) but other than that what I've done has been pretty good (which is not much)

 

[MrCheeto]

Well, unless you had to type in your Name and create a password the first time you started up, there is garbage on the system that could bog it down, even though the documents are gone.

 

[jrriley3]

Ah, Nope. Sure didn't have to do that. I'll research how to do that as well!

 

[GaxMacMan]

I've got that exact iBook with the same Mac OS 10.2.8 Jaguar

Hope this helps.

I bought an iBook G3 800 w/ a 30 gig h/d; 512 mb added memory for a total of 640 mb (that's all it'll take.) Like yours, mine is running Mac OS 10.2.8 Jaguar.

Like yours, mine starts slow - but after it boots it runs great. I bought one of those laptop plastic trays with the cooling fans at Rite-Aid for like ten bucks, that was a great investment though because without it running the fastest browser that this little Mac can handle (Firefox version 1.5.0.1) gets real hot. But the fans under the little iBook helps tremendously.

Like yours, mine had no software loaded on it and I removed the orginal owners log in profile and burned it (trashed).

Like you, I am a newbie to Macs, so to speak although I have an old Mac IIci that I use to play an old Centidpede like game called Aperion.

You should be able to get rid of any old users though by creating your login / password ID and choosing Adminstrator options.

The reason I bought this little Mac is that I wanted a smaller laptop than my Toshiba 350 Satellite 17" to travel with.

What's ironic is that the little Mac is more stable and works just as well on wireless networks as the Toshiba and the battery life is much better and the repalcements are much more affordable.

Good luck with that little Mac.