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-- Apple's Airport technology (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=11122)

How compatible is Airport with 802.11? I see I have to have a Mac as a base, can it only talk to Macs, or could I have an Airport station with a PC laptop and Mac laptop talking to it or would I have to have a PC wireless hub?

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James Hromadka
Old Friend

My understanding is that it is 802.11. That you have to use a Mac to configure it, but once configured, you can use is with PC or Mac alike. I however do not have any direct experience.

As stated, it's 802.11 and can only talk to a Mac for setup. Once setup, you can use a PC or Mac with it.

The Orinoco RG1000 (Lucent's Airport base counterpart) is the opposite: Can only be set up with a PC, but can then be used with either a PC or a Mac.

Both of these points are really interesting, as both bases appear to use the Orinico 802.11 PC card for the wireless interface (I know the Airport base does. I'm assuming the RG1000 does as well). Some sort of non-compete agreement?

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It's gotta be weather balloons. It's always weather balloons. Big, fiery, exploding weather balloons.
-- ComaVN (from Slashdot)

You can get an Airport (which ironically is just a i486 with a rom, modem and ethernet card) configured sans Macintosh. There's a couple software apps that'll let you do it according to a how-to article written last year in the San Francisco Chronicle.

A copy of the article with some extra advice is listed at the MacWindows website: http://www.macwindows.com/airportpc.html

good luck
sam