Airport Extreme backwards compatible?

webkuh

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Is a G4 laptop with one of the original Airport cards installed be able to connect to a signal from an Airport Extreme base station?
 
Airport and AirportExtreme are all cross- and backwards compatible.
"old" Airport cards can connect to "old" Airport stations and AirportExtreme at 11 mbps; Airport Extreme cards can connect to "old" Airport stations at 11 mbps and to Airport Extreme at 55 mbps.
 
But can I put an old Airport card in a PB that's "Airport Extreme Ready" ? I need to because there's no 802.11g support for Linux yet.
 
No, an Airport card has to match its slot. Airport Extreme Ready means that the slot available will accept only the Airport Extreme card (again, it's backward compatible, the AE card can communicate on the slower wireless just fine. (problem may be drivers from Linux for the card itself). Also, you may have a PC slot which will accept one of the compatible wireless PC cards.
 
Whoa!!! Now that you mention it, I went and downloaded the PDF datasheet for the 15" PB. Sure enough, it has a PC card slot for Type I/II cards. Don't know what I never noticed that. Well I have an iBook which of course doesn't have a PC Card slot.

Guess I will be getting a PowerBook after all :-D
 
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