Re: [Wirelessdriver-support] Re: PowerBook G4 15"/OS X 10.3.2/Proxim Orinoco Silver 802.11b/g (Barry Hawkins)

[Amanda W. <am...@al...>]

On Dec 21, 2003, at 11:14 PM, Barry Hawkins wrote:
> 	Thanks so much for responding.  I regretfully assumed that all Proxim 
> Orinoco Silver cards used the same chipset, and I now own one of these 
> relatively-useless items.  It's ironic that I bought it trying to get 
> away from the Broadcom chipsets on AirPort Extreme cards 8^).

There are actually 3 "Orinoco Silver" cards that I know of:

- "Classic" version -- HERMES 1.0 controller -- basically the old 
WaveLAN Silver card, very widely supported.
- 8421-WD (gold version is 8420-WD) -- Uses a HERMES 2.0 controller.  
Not widely supported, but could be supported by current drivers if they 
implement firmware download and find a way to get & use an Agere 
firmware image legally.  Otherwise fairly similar to HERMES 1.0 from 
the driver's perspective.
- a/b, a/b/g combo cards: Atheros AR5000 chipset.  Needs completely new 
driver, but has a very good radio.
- b/g combo card: unknown chipset (could be either Atheros or Broadcom, 
my guess is Atheros).  Possibly an Agere HERMES 2.0 if Agere has 
actually started shipping a g version (they weren't last I knew).

> 	Is there a best-bet PCMCIA card you could recommend that uses the 
> Lucent/Agere/Intersil/Corporate-entity-du-jour?

Not really.  Proxim is still selling the HERMES 1.0 cards as "Orinoco 
Classic", but they are b only.  They do work nicely with everyone's 
driver, though.

>   Also, has the Broadcom and Atheros regime taken over with the 
> 802.11g range of products?

Pretty much.  Atheros and Broadcom have almost all of the 802.11a and 
802.11g market between them.  Intersil's PRISM GT & PRISM Duette aren't 
very popular so far, and are yet another chipset design.  Agere hasn't 
shipped a g-capable version of the HERMES yet, as far as I know.  It's 
quite a mess being a driver developer right now :-).


Amanda Walker