Original AirPort card in PCMCIA slot

[Andropov]

Can I plug an original AirPort card into a PCMCIA slot from a hackintosh? And, obviously, connect a compatible antenna (from a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth) in the antenna port of the AirPort card.

 

[Gus]

Unfortunately I do not have a straight yes or no. However, I would guess, if running SL or Lion that is won't work. Since the only machines that have a pcmcia airport are to old to run SL or Lion, so why would apple keep the kexts or whatever it needs to run them? Just a thought(a sad one at that, I have a couple kicking around I could have used.)

 

[Andropov]

Yes, the AirPort card support was dropped in Snow Leopard. But I have a G4 Cube (and other AirPort compatible Macs) and I can use the Leopard kexts for the AirPort card.

I'm going to install Lion today, if I success I'll try to use the AirPort kexts.

 

[Gus]

I never thought about taking kexts form the older os. Let us know how it works!

 

[minihack]

I'm not sure where I read this....but if I remember rightly (!) although the pinouts look similar no-one has got the old type airport cards that you are talking about to work in a hack. Doesn't mean it is impossible just that I think it is not an easy hack.

 

[Gus]

I'm not sure where I read this....but if I remember rightly (!) although the pinouts look similar no-one has got the old type airport cards that you are talking about to work in a hack. Doesn't mean it is impossible just that I think it is not an easy hack.

That too may be an issue since they are apple proprietary parts. However, I have seen people putting a third party PCMCIA WiFi card into iBooks, so that would suggest that it is in fact a standard pinout? Again, just assuming everything here.

Guess it would just be put into a PCI-E slot card? Would need to find one that had no chips on it? Or maybe apple make them? Who knows.

Had a wee search in google, got this. Which says, no. Non standard pinout. :
But it took me here, whihc says, get one of these. Linksys WPC54GS, seen as airport. Or a Buffalo AirStation PCMCIA WLI-CB-G54HP but it takes more work to get working.

 

[Andropov]

I'm having issues to install Snow Leopard, I couldn't install the AirPort card yet, but a G4 Cube doesn't recognize a PCMCIA to USB 2.0 adapter on its AirPort slot. Maybe it has a different pinout, or maybe the adapter simply doesn't fit well on the G4 Cube. Who knows.

 

[jaybrooks]

The airport cards do fit into pcmcia slots and vice versa however are not compatible at all. This was because the card cost at the time would of competed with the oems card. The actual electrical connections have pins reversed in some areas to make it only a apple pc card. This also makes it impossible to plug a aftermarket card into the airport slot.

Now this isnt a big problem since you can use a off the shelf broadcom 43xx series chipset in a hack in tosh to get the airport extreme connection (since it isn't a airport slot on these). There are plenty of these sold on ebay for less than 15$.

Hope this helps your question

 

[roto31]

There were a few 3rd party PCIMA cards that used the broadcom chip set which were able to be used in the AirPort slot. It was quite common in the days of the original AirPort card for people to look for alternative cards when the original card died. The Orinoco cards were exactly the same as the original AirPort card which came in a card labeled by Dell. Check out this link from Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/ed/royal/08sr/powerbook-wifi-pc-cards.html There were also a few cards made that were able to use the PCIMA slot on the PowerBook and even a few USB based cards that were seen OOTB as an AirPort Extreme card. The cards I last mentioned are tough to find though. Check out this link as well for the cards which work as Airport Extreme and Airport cards.