Help me get this Mac G4 On my Wireless Network

[SpeedTester]

Can someone please help me either with a step by step instruction or web site
on how to configure a Mac g4 with OS/9.2 and getting it to see the SMC wireless
accesspoint/router. I am totally clueless on how to setup the 802.11b properties
because I cant even find where they are. The Router is using DHCP and I can connect
fine anywhere in the house with a wireless laptop but cant get the Mac to see anything.

Mac System.
Mac G4 with OS9.2
Airport Card installed and setup
35' from Access point.

Router System
SMC7004AWBR
DHCP
Machine name = liiv
1 Pc Cat-5 Connected
Latest Firmware
Cox@home


Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Guys.

 

[Orange Kid]

does your router have Apple Talk Protocol?

i don't use a router so don't know if this is a viable option ...........i know this is needed to connect a Mac to a PC (Windows) environment

 

[SpeedTester]

<< does your router have Apple Talk Protocol? >>



Not that I know of or can find. SMC clearly states that its compatible with Macs but they dont have
any documentation about it anywhere.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< does your router have Apple Talk Protocol?i don't use a router so don't know if this is a viable option ...........i know this is needed to connect a Mac to a PC (Windows) environment >>



Appletalk is 100% useless... Well close to it. I dont use it at all to connect my Mac and any other machine. Of course I mostly use OS X...


How much Mac experience do you have? Probably not much... Click (left, right, middle, its all the same on a one button mouse ) the Apple menu (upper right hand corner, looks like an apple). Go down to control panels and look to see if airport is listed there. If not, let me know Ill do a search on Apple's page.

 

[SpeedTester]

<< Go down to control panels and look to see if airport is listed there. >>



Lol, your right I dont know the Mac Os very well but I was getting the hang on it because of the 6 hours
trying to get it to connect to the access point. Yes Airport is listed under the Apple Control panel.
The only option I really could choose was Computer to Computer or I could set up the G4 as I Airstation.
I thought all I would have to do was to put in the SSID and setup the Airport but I cant find the SSID input anywhere.
Thanks again.

 

[SpeedTester]

Bump for help.

 

[Utterman]

I have networked macs with pcs using a router, but I have never done wireless. Since I don't have a Mac right in front of me, I'm just going to try my best from memory.

First goto the apple on the top left corner, then goto control panel (not sure if this is the exact name). There should be a list of different system settings and you want to find the TCP/IP one. Once you get there you want to select DHCP and have it get it's settings automatically. That should be all you have to do, but it may be slighty different with the wireless card.

I will try to get on a Mac when I go to work later today, so I will try to correct my info then.

Hope this helps you out a little bit

 

[SpeedTester]

I've tried selecting DHCP with no luck. I think the only problem is with the SSID,
if you dont have one you cant connect, otherwise anyone with an airport card could use
you lan/internet access for free. If I could only find out where to enter the SSID I think it would work.

 

[Tallgeese]

<< I think the only problem is with the SSID...If I could only find out where to enter the SSID I think it would work. >>

The SSID can be set using the following methods:
OS 9.X = Use the "Airport" application
OS 10.X = Apple Menu->System Preferences...->Network

HTH

 

[Tallgeese]

<< I think the only problem is with the SSID...If I could only find out where to enter the SSID I think it would work. >>

This quote (from Ric Ford's superlative MacInTouch) may shed some additional light on multi-vendor configurations:

<< Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 14:29:46 -0800
From: Jarrod
Subject: Updated: Special Reports: Wireless LAN


Here are a few tips using the SMC Barricade SMC7004AWBR wireless router and WEP. I have a pre-Airport and pre-G3 Powerbook and an iMac SE. I wanted an alternative (read cheaper) solution than Apple's Airport Base Station.

The iMac came with an Airport card pre-installed and has since been upgraded to Airport 2 in OS X. I also recently acquired a Lucent Technologies Orinoco (formerly Wavelan) Silver PC Card from Agere Systems, which offers 64-bit WEP for my Powerbook.

The most challenging aspect of setting up the WEP security is getting it to work on each hardware device. I'll explain the three steps it will take to get the above configurations working. We're still using Macs, so it's relatively painless once you know how. The steps below assumes you're familiar with the wireless aspects of your hardware and that you're not yet using or haven't figured out how to enable WEP using your SMC router.

Step 1 for the router: Access your SMC router via your web browser on any Mac using a hardwire Ethernet connection and click on the last link in the left pane, "Wireless". In the main window, under Wireless Setting, select a name for your wireless router in the space next to Network ID(SSID). The next item, Channel, can be left alone. The item after that is where you set your WEP Security. In my case, since the PC Card in my Powerbook uses 64-bit WEP encryption, I chose the "Enable IEEE 64 bit Shared Key security" option for the router. Now choose "WEP Key 1" and enter a Hexadecimal string of 10 characters (you can only use the numbers 0-9 and the letters a-f). I try to come up with a nifty pass phrase to help me remember the string, which may prove challenging using hex. In our example, let's use decade2010. Save your changes and reboot the router.

Step 2 for the iMac: In either OS 9 or X, invoke the Airport Setup Assistant. The assistant should detect your SMC wireless router now. In OS X, you'll get an Enter Network Password dialog box where you'll need to enter the hexadecimal string you came up with in Step 1. But in order for it to work, you have to enter a dollar sign ($) before the string. In our example, the network password that will work with your Apple branded Airport card and the SMC router is: $decade2010

Step 3 for the Powerbook: Open the ORiNOCO control panel and click on the Encryption tab. Click on the Enable Encryption check box and next to Key 1: enter a zero (0) and the letter "x" before the string in Step 1. This lets the Wavelan card know you'll be transmitting using a hexadecimal string. In our example, Key 1 will look like this: 0xdecade2010 (don't forget to set the "Transmit using" to use Key 1 and then click on Set to save your changes). If you click back to the Basic tab, you should see Closed Network for Network:, and your router's name for Net Name: which you set up in Step 1.

This setup works flawlessly for me and I highly recommend this non-Apple branded hardware.

The SMC wireless router has a printer server port and a serial port if you want to add your old 56K modem to it. This is good if you have broadband and it goes down. I've only tested this scenario and I pray to the Wireless Goddess that I never need to invoke it! It also bridges AppleTalk, which is awesome for printing to old laser printers that have Ethernet, but don't support TCP/IP and for easy file sharing. The USB Printer Sharing in OS 9 works great too.

The Lucent wireless PC Card is actually an Apple Airport card, but Lucent of course adds the antenna. This card is compatible with any Powerbook with a PCMCIA slot in it (even the 5300 and 190 series!) using Mac OS 7.5.2 and greater.

And best of all, SMC and Lucent support Mac users while many other non-Apple wireless hardware vendors do not.

Have fun in the wireless zone!

- Jarrod >>

HTH

 

[SpeedTester]

TallGeese,

Thanks so much! I'll try this later this week when I get time and I'll let you know how it went.

 

[calpha]

That's pretty sweet. I thought AirPorts were proprietary. Time to send my base station off to the resale land, we don't use it anymore anyway.

But I surely didn't know you could use an Airport 1st Gen Card with another type of Access Point.

Thanks guys. Learned something 2nite.