PCMCIA WiFi card for A1200

[npagonis73]

Hello everyone

I have been looking for a long time on the internet for a pcmcia WiFi card for my A1200 but I can’t find anything in the Amiga shops. The one I found in Retro Ready eshop (a netgear one) is constantly out of stock.

Do you have any idea where else I could find one?

[crazyc]

Originally Posted by npagonis73

Hello everyone

I have been looking for a long time on the internet for a pcmcia WiFi card for my A1200 but I can’t find anything in the Amiga shops. The one I found in Retro Ready eshop (a netgear one) is constantly out of stock.

Do you have any idea where else I could find one?

Try amibay? I picked one up there recently.

[lesta_smsc]

Or do what I did. PCMCIA ethernet card connected to a WiFi bridge. No hassle with configuration.

[alexh]

There are numerous on eBay right now but unfortunately their owners all know what they have and they are listed around the £60-£90

Lucent Orinoco Bronze, Silver, Gold
Compaq WL110
Linksys WPC11 v.3

https://aminet.net/package/driver/net/prism2v2

Incompatible cardbus PCMCIA Wifi cards can be spotted easily by the gold strip with bumps on next to the connector. (They are usually easy to spot because of the price, they are practically worthless)

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by alexh

There are numerous on eBay right now but unfortunately their owners all know what they have and they are listed around the £60-£90

Lucent Orinoco Bronze, Silver, Gold
Compaq WL110
Linksys WPC11 v.3

https://aminet.net/package/driver/net/prism2v2

Incompatible cardbus PCMCIA Wifi cards can be spotted easily by the gold strip with bumps on next to the connector. (They are usually easy to spot because of the price, they are practically worthless)

Like this seller:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224920851...mis&media=COPY

The price of their items are phenomenal! I wonder whether such accounts are just cover ups for laundering money or something more ominous ...

[alexh]

Almost certainly an Amiga reseller. They are selling the Vast majority of all Amiga capable PCMCIA cards on Ebay UK today. They probably buy them at below £10 from FB Marketplace, Gumtree, Freecycle, car boots etc.

[jbilander]

Originally Posted by npagonis73

Hello everyone
Do you have any idea where else I could find one?

Hi, if you can wait a little bit I think there are stuff in the works based on the Pico W for both the PCMCIA-slot and a A1200-clockport version, the latter made by Niklas.

PCMCIA-card like this:
[ Show youtube player ]

It should help bring down today's ridiculous prices, I hope.

[lesta_smsc]

Given the price of cards, it is cheaper and better to get this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/276232582...mis&media=COPY

[jbilander]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

Given the price of cards, it is cheaper and better to get this

Keep in mind the parallel-port on the miggy is slow, with a plipbox kind of device you can expect around 35-45 KB/s maximum. It's not in the same ballpark as the other alternatives (PCMCIA, clockport) in terms of speed.

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by jbilander

Keep in mind the parallel-port on the miggy is slow, with a plipbox kind of device you can expect around 35-45 KB/s maximum. It's not in the same ballpark as the other alternatives (PCMCIA, clockport) in terms of speed.

Sure that is true. The WiFi is 11mbps max even on PC so not sure whether Amiga can manage this much.

Your post on the PCMCIA project looks cool! Even better if if the Pistorm supports internal WiFi then no need for external peripherals.

[klx300r]

The A314-cp is a good internal solution for wifi in the A1200

[kriz]

But can we buy the A314-cp card ?

[jbilander]

An update on the PCMCIA-card, very nice...
[ Show youtube player ]

[Sir_Lucas]

Originally Posted by npagonis73

Hello everyone

I have been looking for a long time on the internet for a pcmcia WiFi card for my A1200 but I can’t find anything in the Amiga shops. The one I found in Retro Ready eshop (a netgear one) is constantly out of stock.

Do you have any idea where else I could find one?

Have a look here. They seem to be in stock:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165579814...0AAOSwV7tmBS9B

and here:
https://retroready.one/products/wifi...343b7950&_ss=r

[alexh]

£56 is too much for a product that usually can be picked up for under £10. It is simple profiteering.

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by alexh

£56 is too much for a product that usually can be picked up for under £10. It is simple profiteering.

The problem is that those who pick them up for £10 are flogging at premium!

The vintage / retro scene is just full of people wanting to exploit. Shame, but you just can't expect some in society to stop being utter...

[alexh]

I wonder if we can convince Neil Cafferkey (3C589/Prism2) to help write a driver for the last remaining 16-bit PCMCIA wifi chipset, Atmel AT76C502A, that is unsupported in AmigaOS?

These cards still sell for under £10

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156137365936

[jbilander]

Originally Posted by alexh

...the last remaining 16-bit PCMCIA wifi chipset, Atmel AT76C502A

Isn't the problem with them old cards they don't work well with modern WPA2-PSK (AES)? which pretty much everyone run these days on their home wifi network. You will have to enable WEP or such old cracked protocol which I wouldn't do unless it's a dedicated Guest/Amiga-playground network. WPA2 support is something the new Pico W has.

If someone has the time and knowledge to write drivers it would be really interesting to see if it's possible to get a chip like this working with the Amiga:

https://www.wch-ic.com/products/CH395.html

Now this is wired ethernet so a bit off topic for this thread.

Anyway, my thinking here is to offload the Amiga from the burden of handling a TCP/IP-stack. This would require to implement bsdsockets using bsdsocket.library. I don't know how well this would work with existing Amiga software out there but it would for sure be interesting to explore and tinker with. I don't even have the need for internet on my Amigas but as a learning experience it would be fun to see if it can be done.

The chip has a built in TCP/IP-stack similar to the WizNet chips but also a 8-bit parallel bus which seems to be 5V-tolerant on the bus pins (at least from what I can gather from the datasheet).

[pixie]

I wont' say that the best way to run wifi theses days is a pistorm, but there will be signs...

Signs:
[ Show youtube player ]

[alexh]

Originally Posted by jbilander

Isn't the problem with them old cards they don't work well with modern WPA2-PSK (AES)?

Some but not all. Prism2 chipset supports WPA2-PSK (AES) and so should the Atmel chipset above (with a FW update)