USB Dongle for iMac G5 (Leopard)

[3349793]

Hi all,

(I'm not sure if this is meant to be in the "Mac Accessories" forum, if so, could somebody please move it?)

I have a 1.6GHz iMac G5 (very first G5), which obviously didn't come with a bluetooth module, neither a bluetooth antenna cable, so that I could use the bluetooth card from my PowerMac G5.

I do own a USB Bluetooth Dongle that works perfectly fine under Tiger. When I boot into Leopard, Bluetooth does show up in System Preferences, but when I try to connect my generic (lol) bluetooth keyboard, it simply won't connect and it is driving me mad. Nothing will connect to it. Not even my Magic Mouse with the wireless mouse update 1.0 for Leopard. It will say that it's connected but it's really not. The same happens (rarely) with the keyboard.

I was thinking of buying an original Apple Wired Keyboard, but I just don't know. If one of you guys have a solution for this then I won't need to buy one.

I really hope that it's only drivers.

Thanks, Alex

 

[eyoungren]

Someone else may be able to help with your specific dongle, but might I suggest another?

$8-10 on eBay depending on which range you want. My son has the cheaper one and I have the slightly less cheaper one.

Both adapters provide native BT support transparently to the Mac (i.e., the Mac thinks a BT card is installed).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WOW-Belkin-...394993?hash=item3a52829df1:g:FL4AAOxye3BRwfYz

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BELKIN-Blue...290306?hash=item3a70d7be42:g:QV0AAMXQlgtS8Hav

MODS, NOT MY AUCTIONS!!!!

Oh yeah! All my Macs run Leopard except for those that cannot. But both Macs using these adapters are running Leopard. I have had zero issues with them. My son uses his adapter to connect with a Wiimote to play games on his TiBook.

 

[3349793]

Someone else may be able to help with your specific dongle, but might I suggest another?

$8-10 on eBay depending on which range you want. My son has the cheaper one and I have the slightly less cheaper one.

Both adapters provide native USB support transparently to the Mac (i.e., the Mac thinks a BT card is installed).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WOW-Belkin-...394993?hash=item3a52829df1:g:FL4AAOxye3BRwfYz

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BELKIN-Blue...290306?hash=item3a70d7be42:g:QV0AAMXQlgtS8Hav

MODS, NOT MY AUCTIONS!!!!

Oh yeah! All my Macs run Leopard except for those that cannot. But both Macs using these adapters are running Leopard. I have had zero issues with them. My son uses his adapter to connect with a Wiimote to play games on his TiBook.

Thanks for those suggestions. I will buy one of them. The USB dongle I have is from years ago (I'm not even sure if it's meant to work on Macs or not, lol), so I'm pretty sure I won't find any driver for it.

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks for those suggestions. I will buy one of them. The USB dongle I have is from years ago (I'm not even sure if it's meant to work on Macs or not, lol), so I'm pretty sure I won't find any driver for it.

Cool. Yeah, this is a good vendor and like I said, the dongles work as if you had a BT card installed. I am totally happy with the two purchases I've made.

 

[Hack5190]

My Leopard G5 has a Belkin unit that looks like the ones eyoungren linked (except mine is grey). It works perfect and doesn't need special drivers. Only problem is that on occasion the system won't recognize it after waking from sleep (requires a reboot).

 

[3349793]

Cool. Yeah, this is a good vendor and like I said, the dongles work as if you had a BT card installed. I am totally happy with the two purchases I've made.

Thanks. Now you made me really want to buy one.

My Leopard G5 has a Belkin unit that looks like the ones eyoungren linked (except mine is grey). It works perfect and doesn't need special drivers. Only problem is that on occasion the system won't recognize it after waking from sleep (requires a reboot).

Thanks. I will try it out asap and see if it's good.

 

[iModFrenzy]

My son uses his adapter to connect with a Wiimote to play games on his TiBook.

I thought the WiiMote needed special drivers on OS X/Windows. What games does he play with it anyway?

 

[eyoungren]

I thought the WiiMote needed special drivers on OS X/Windows. What games does he play with it anyway?

He's using an app call Wiiji and he uses a Nintendo simulator. Mainly to play Mario Bros.

 

[Altemose]

I use a Rocketfish micro USB adapter and it works great on 10.3+.

 

[jbarley]

Cool. Yeah, this is a good vendor and like I said, the dongles work as if you had a BT card installed. I am totally happy with the two purchases I've made.

Erik, when you say "the dongles work as if you had a BT card installed" does this include recognizing any boot-up keyboard input such as Cmd+s for single user mode etc?
I've tried several and have yet to find one that will do this for me and have put it down to a USB limitation of not being enabled until later in the boot process.

 

[eyoungren]

Erik, when you say "the dongles work as if you had a BT card installed" does this include recognizing any boot-up keyboard input such as Cmd+s for single user mode etc?
I've tried several and have yet to find one that will do this for me and have put it down to a USB limitation of not being enabled until later in the boot process.

James, I don't think so. An actual BT card is hardware so the system will recognize it and I believe Open Firmware then takes over.

That said, I don't use a wireless keyboard so I cannot say for certain that it would not be recognized. I would test for you, but at home or work there is no Mac BT keyboard so I can't.

I know that my Magic Mouse is recognized before the login window loads and that I can pair at the login screen, but that's pretty late in the boot process.

Wish I could give you a better answer.