Mac Daniel's Advice

WiFi Adapters for Desktop Macs Running Mac OS 9

- 2009.03.10

Popularity:

Older Macs may not have a slot for Apple's AirPort Card, and even if yours does, you may want higher throughput than 802.11b WiFi offers - 802.11g will give you nearly five times the bandwidth. Also, these WiFi adapters may well cost less than an AirPort Card, which tends to sell in the US$50-100 range nowadays.

This page covers USB, ethernet, PCI, and other WiFi hardware that is compatible with the Classic Mac OS. A few of these devices are compatible with Mac OS 8.6; all of them are reported to work with Mac OS 9, and most also have drivers available for some versions of Mac OS X.

PCMCIA/PC Card WiFi adapters compatible with Mac notebooks are covered in WiFi PC Cards for PowerBooks Running Mac OS 9.

This information is adapted from Mac OS Wireless Adapter Compatibility List by permission of the author, who gives a "nod to the linux-wlan.org Adapter List for doing the heavy lifting."

Vendor

Type

Product ID

Interface

Chipset

OS Support

Driver(s)

Comments

A

Ambicom

802.11b

WL1100BCF

Comp. Flash

Prism2/2.5/3

9, 10.2-10.4

IOxperts

Ambicom

802.11b

WL1100CCF

Comp. Flash

Prism2/2.5/3

9, 10.2-10.4

IOxperts

Asante

802.11b

AL2001

USB

Amtel

9, 10.2-10.4

Belkin

Belkin drv With Asante VID

B

Belkin

802.11b

F5D6050

USB

Amtel

9, 10.2-10.4

Belkin

Buffalo

802.11b

WLICFS11G

Comp. Flash

Prism2/2.5/3

9, 10.2-10.4

IOxperts

Buffalo

802.11b

WLIPCML11G

USB (?)

Orinoco

9, 10.2-10.4

Ioxperts (10.2 and up), Macsense

C

Cisco

802.11b

AIRPCI340

PCI

Aironet (?)

8.6-up

Cisco

D

D-link

802.11b/g

DWL-G810

Ethernet

9, 10.2-10.4

N/A

E

F

Farallon (see Proxim)

L

Linksys

802.11b

WET11

Ethernet

Prism2/2.5/3

Any

N/A

M

Macsense

802.11b

WUA-400

USB

Prism2/2.5/3

9-up

Macsense

802.11b

WUA-700

USB

Prism2/2.5/3

9-up

Macsense

MacWireless

802.11g

Ethernet

Any

None

Melco (see Buffalo)

N

Netgear

802.11b

MA101

USB

Amtel

9, 10.2-10.4

Belkin

Belkin drv. w/Netgear VID

Netgear

802.11g

WGE111

Ethernet

9, 10.2-10.4

N/A

P

Proxim

802.11b

PN474(Skyline USB)

USB

Amtel

Proxim

Belkin OS X drivers?

Z

Z-Com

802.11b

XI300

PCMCIA

Prism2/2.5/3

9, 10.2-10.4

IOxperts, Macsense

Zyxel

802.11g

G-405

Ethernet

Unknown

9, 10.2-10.4

None

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