What Does an Airport Card Actually Do?

[ultrasaw]

Talking specifically about the original AirPort cards that shipped during the G3 era.

From what I understand, the original AirPort cards lacked an antenna.
So lets take a Clamshell, for example. It has both a modem and antenna built in, but you'd still need an AirPort card to connect wirelessly.
Not to imply that these cards are useless, because they clearly aren't. I just wanna know what technology is actually in AirPort cards that bridges the gap and allows for the wireless functionality. I know nothing about early wireless technology.

 

[alex_free]

Talking specifically about the original AirPort cards that shipped during the G3 era.

From what I understand, the original AirPort cards lacked an antenna.
So lets take a Clamshell, for example. It has both a modem and antenna built in, but you'd still need an AirPort card to connect wirelessly.
Not to imply that these cards are useless, because they clearly aren't. I just wanna know what technology is actually in AirPort cards that bridges the gap and allows for the wireless functionality. I know nothing about early wireless technology.

The original Airport cards are literally just Apple branded WiFi cards that already existed at the time.

“The original model, known as simply AirPort card, was a re-branded LucentWaveLAN/Orinoco Gold PC card, in a modified housing that lacked the integrated antenna” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort

 

[Amethyst1]

It has both a modem and antenna built in

A modem will not connect to a wireless network. And the antenna isn't doing anything without the WiFi chip on the Airport card being connected to it.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

The cards are what provide the actual wireless connection capabilities, as others have stated. The antenna is built-in to the computer to allow those who didn't buy a card with their computer initially to buy one later as an upgrade. At this time wireless cards weren't necessarily something everyone wanted, and so Apple made it an optional feature that you could buy later if your needs changed.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

The original Airport cards are literally just Apple branded WiFi cards that already existed at the time.

“The original model, known as simply AirPort card, was a re-branded LucentWaveLAN/Orinoco Gold PC card, in a modified housing that lacked the integrated antenna” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort

This is correct.

In iBooks/PowerBooks during the early WiFi era (circa 2002), the WiFi antenna was built into the top housing. The WiFi network chip was not included in the system, it was a separate accessory. You removed the Mac notebook's battery which revealed a slot for the 802.11b card. My memory is quite hazy but I think it was $89 or $99 at the time, a sizable chunk in 2002 dollars.

By contrast Windows notebook PCs at the time did not have an integrated WiFi antenna. You'd plug a WiFi card into one of the notebook's PCMCIA slots. The protruding part of the PC card contained the WiFi antenna. Some of those PCMCIA cards had a very small connector for a short whip antenna.

The Apple AirPort system was considered more elegant since it was a fully integrated solution with no protrusions.

 

[repairedCheese]

If memory serves, original Airport cards were 802.11b, while Airport Extreme were 802.11g. Unfortunately, I do believe they were also a completely different form factor, which is a shame, as I believe Tiger and Leopard could support both. From the way things look, Airport cards have always been wifi cards, it's the software that makes it sound like they're something else.

 

[Nermal]

You removed the Mac notebook's battery which revealed a slot for the 802.11b card.

On at least some machines you removed the keyboard.

 

[rampancy]

If memory serves, original Airport cards were 802.11b, while Airport Extreme were 802.11g. Unfortunately, I do believe they were also a completely different form factor, which is a shame, as I believe Tiger and Leopard could support both. From the way things look, Airport cards have always been wifi cards, it's the software that makes it sound like they're something else.

While the original AirPort cards were modified and rebranded PCMCIA cards, the Airport Extreme cards used PCI-E and mini PCI-E.

 

[TheShortTimer]

By contrast Windows notebook PCs at the time did not have an integrated WiFi antenna. You'd plug a WiFi card into one of the notebook's PCMCIA slots. The protruding part of the PC card contained the WiFi antenna. Some of those PCMCIA cards had a very small connector for a short whip antenna.

Which is exactly how I started off with WiFi on my Windows laptops. NETGEAR's products were my go-to for WiFi PCMCIA cards.

The Apple AirPort system was considered more elegant since it was a fully integrated solution with no protrusions.

No drivers for you to set up either.

On at least some machines you removed the keyboard.

That's certainly the case on my dual USB iBook G3's.

 

[bunnspecial]

FWIW, I typically don't fit Airport cards to TiBooks, including my workhorse(and only PPC Mac I have readily at hand now) my 1ghz.

Apple's original Airport card is a rebranded Orinoco Gold PCMCIA card that fits in an Apple proprietary slot that is functionally the same as PCMCIA.

Since the TiBook and a whole, whole bunch of older Macs have Cardbus/PCMCIA slots, I just watched Ebay and grabbed an Orinoco Gold card. I've used mine as far back as my 3400c and 2400c, so it's been a valuable investment.

The original Airport cards are mostly useless now if you have a reasonably secure home WiFi network. On occasion, I've set up one of the original Apple Airport base stations isolated from my primary WiFi network just to allow Airport cards to connect.

The Airport Extreme cards are not only faster, but are still compatible with most home routers(they're good with WPA2, and I use to be able to use them on the 802.11x network at my old work).

There are plenty of 802.11g Cardbus cards out there that use the same chipset as Apple's Airport Extreme cards. If you have such a card and stick it in your Cardbus slot, OS X Tiger and Leopard treat them just like a native Airport Extreme card. Airport Extreme cards don't work in OS 9. BTW, Ebay at least use to be awash with these cards, and a lot were sold as such(you didn't have to track down specific part numbers-there's one Motorola PCI card that will also function as an Airport Extreme, and for a while I was hoarding them since the allow you to have functional WiFi in pre-MDD FW800 towers).

In any case, even though having a PCMCIA/Cardbus card stick out of the side of your computer is less elegant than Apple's solution, I also generally dual boot Leopard and OS 9 in my faster TiBooks(a lot of my slower ones have both Tiger and Leopard installed, but I usually will run Tiger). Using the card slot lets me take advantage of faster/better WiFi networks in OS X, but I can plug the Orinoco Gold in and use it in OS 9.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Funny this thread comes up now actually, as I just bought a second Dell TrueMobile 1150 after the first one I bought turned out to be the wrong chipset to work in my PowerBook 1400 (I needed a Lucent card, not an Agere). At least now I have an extra for any old PCs I want to bring online xD

 

[rampancy]

There are plenty of 802.11g Cardbus cards out there that use the same chipset as Apple's Airport Extreme cards. If you have such a card and stick it in your Cardbus slot, OS X Tiger and Leopard treat them just like a native Airport Extreme card. Airport Extreme cards don't work in OS 9. BTW, Ebay at least use to be awash with these cards, and a lot were sold as such(you didn't have to track down specific part numbers-there's one Motorola PCI card that will also function as an Airport Extreme, and for a while I was hoarding them since the allow you to have functional WiFi in pre-MDD FW800 towers).

Indeed, Radio Shack in Canada used to stock the Motorola 802.11g PCI cards with the Broadcom chipset covered under Apple's Airport Extreme drivers. I pretty much nabbed as many as I could find to put in my collection of Sawtooths. I was quite lucky that they were being sold at firesale prices since many locations in my city were closing down.

By the time I picked up my last Sawtooth, these cards were unavailable, and I had to scour my city's electronics and computer parts stores to find just the right TP-Link 802.11g USB adapter with just the right revision, that had just the right RealTek chipset to match the hacked drivers that those gonzo Hackintosh geniuses put up on the InsanelyMac forums. Getting that stupid USB adapter working was probably one of the things I'm most proud of in my time as a retro/PPC Mac enthusiast.

 

[bunnspecial]

Indeed, Radio Shack in Canada used to stock the Motorola 802.11g PCI cards with the Broadcom chipset covered under Apple's Airport Extreme drivers. I pretty much nabbed as many as I could find to put in my collection of Sawtooths. I was quite lucky that they were being sold at firesale prices since many locations in my city were closing down.

I can't imagine those are the only 802.11g Broadcom cards out there, but I've stuck to them since I know they work. Actually, at the moment, the my G5 dual 2.7 has one in it along with a giant antenna since I couldn't pick up WiFi with the built in antenna in the G5.

Some of this stuff can be nutty on finding the exact right one. At one time, I was trying to get an old Finnigan mass spectrometer operational(something I left unfinished at my last job). The mass spec has an imbedded 486, and it connect to a computer running the software via 10base2(coax) LAN. When the imbedded computer boots, it boots from ROM up to a point where it needs to finish loading the operational software from the computer. At one time, I'd actually connected a monitor and keyboard to the imbedded computer(that was to set up the BIOS correctly after a clock battery died and keep it from stalling booting looking for a keyboard). In any case, with a monitor connected, you can watch all of this.

The computer "handshake" of course involves two LAN cards-one in the imbedded system and one in the data system computer. The mass spec and computer, however, can ONLY talk if you have 3-Com cards of the exact model and revision as the system was designed to use. I suspect the one in the imbedded computer was bad(I'd verified the one in the data system computer, and in fact repurposed one somewhere else when I needed to hook a gas chromatograph up via 10base2) and had been watching Ebay for needed card.