Best way to get old laptop on network..??

[aircooled]

I have an old compaq Armada (P120, 32mbRAM) that I want to hook up to my home network.

There is no NIC on the machine and it has the first generation PCMCIA slots (all of the PCMCIA slot NIC's I've found require the second gen or higher cardbus slots).

Is there any kind of serial or parrellel port NIC's?? Or does anyone know of a PCMCIA nic that works with the old slots??

Thanks..

 

[cavingjan]

What is the purpose of getting this system on the network? Is it just to transfer a couple of files? Or is it for other things? If its just for transferring files around and you have win95 on it, consider going with a direct cable connection using a parallel port cable.
If its for something more, look around and maybe you can find an old pcmcia nic lying around (I foudn an old first gen one at my local computer store for $9) and pass it on to good karma. Or try the For Sale forum or shudder E*bay.

 

[jaywallen]

AFAIK, most or all of the PC Card NIC makers still make and sell 16 bit cards for the older style of PCMCIA controller. I just looked at the Xircom site and found some of them.

 

[Workin']

Yeah, it's easier to find 16-bit non-cardbus PCMCIA NICs than the other way around. You must not have looked very hard.

3Com 3C589D is good, but other companies make them for less $$$$.

 

[aircooled]

Thanks for the replies.

I just want to be able to hook up to my network for broadband internet.

Thanks for the model numbers, I was looking at the ones we had here at work (which I thought were old) and the only supported 32 bit.

 

[esung]

Netgear FA410TX is pretty good. decent price as well.