Older Macs may not have a slot for Apple’s AirPort Card, and even if yours does, you may want higher throughput than 802.11b WiFi offers – 802.11g will give you nearly five times as much bandwidth.
These WiFi adapters may well cost less than an AirPort Card, which tends to sell in the US$50-100 range nowadays.
This page covers USB, ethernet, PCI, and other WiFi hardware that is compatible with the Classic Mac OS. A few of these devices are compatible with Mac OS 8.6; all of them are reported to work with Mac OS 9, and most also have drivers available for some versions of Mac OS X.
PCMCIA/PC Card WiFi adapters compatible with Mac notebooks are covered in WiFi PC Cards for PowerBooks Running Mac OS 9.
This information is adapted from Mac OS Wireless Adapter Compatibility List by permission of the author, who gives a “nod to the linux-wlan.org Adapter List for doing the heavy lifting.”
| Vendor | Type | Product ID | Interface | Chipset | OS Support | Driver(s) | Comments | |||||
A |
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| Ambicom | 802.11b | WL1100BCF | Comp. Flash | Prism2/2.5/3 | 9, 10.2-10.4 | IOxperts | ||||||
| Ambicom | 802.11b | WL1100CCF | Comp. Flash | Prism2/2.5/3 | 9, 10.2-10.4 | IOxperts | ||||||
| Asante | 802.11b | AL2001 | USB | Amtel | 9, 10.2-10.4 | Belkin | Belkin drv With Asante VID | |||||
B |
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| Belkin | 802.11b | F5D6050 | USB | Amtel | 9, 10.2-10.4 | Belkin | ||||||
| Buffalo | 802.11b | WLICFS11G | Comp. Flash | Prism2/2.5/3 | 9, 10.2-10.4 | IOxperts | ||||||
| Buffalo | 802.11b | WLIPCML11G | USB (?) | Orinoco | 9, 10.2-10.4 | Ioxperts (10.2 and up), Macsense | ||||||
C |
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| Cisco | 802.11b | AIRPCI340 | PCI | Aironet (?) | 8.6-up | Cisco | ||||||
D |
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| D-link | 802.11b/g | DWL-G810 | Ethernet | 9, 10.2-10.4 | N/A | |||||||
E |
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F |
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| Farallon (see Proxim) | ||||||||||||
L |
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| Linksys | 802.11b | WET11 | Ethernet | Prism2/2.5/3 | Any | N/A | ||||||
M |
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| Macsense | 802.11b | WUA-400 | USB | Prism2/2.5/3 | 9-up | Macsense | ||||||
| Macsense | 802.11b | WUA-700 | USB | Prism2/2.5/3 | 9-up | Macsense | ||||||
| MacWireless | 802.11g | ? | Ethernet | ? | Any | None | ||||||
| Melco (see Buffalo) | ||||||||||||
N |
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| Netgear | 802.11b | MA101 | USB | Amtel | 9, 10.2-10.4 | Belkin | Belkin drv. w/Netgear VID | |||||
| Netgear | 802.11g | WGE111 | Ethernet | 9, 10.2-10.4 | N/A | |||||||
P |
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| Proxim | 802.11b | PN474(Skyline USB) | USB | Amtel | 9 | Proxim | Belkin OS X drivers? | |||||
Z |
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| Z-Com | 802.11b | XI300 | PCMCIA | Prism2/2.5/3 | 9, 10.2-10.4 | IOxperts, Macsense | ||||||
| Zyxel | 802.11g | G-405 | Ethernet | Unknown | 9, 10.2-10.4 | None | ||||||
Short link: http://goo.gl/WxIoBD
searchword: os9wifi
