Hidden treasure inside an old AirPort Extreme Base Station (A1034)

[haydonbeagley]

Just opened up an old AirPort Extreme Base Station (A1034) just to see what it had inside. Upon a little digging I found it literally houses a standard AirPort Extreme Card and is powered by an AMD CPU/SoC!

Got curious about if the AirPort Card would work in a standard Mac and it does!

So my eMac gains WiFi finally in 2022, as it wasn’t ordered with AirPort according to the sticker on the drive door!

 

[ScutBoy]

Nice! We used to salvage the original grey saucer Airport base stations since they had Orinoco Gold PCMCIA wireless cards inside. Many a laptop gained wireless capability for cheap/free because of this!

 

[haydonbeagley]

Nice! We used to salvage the original grey saucer Airport base stations since they had Orinoco Gold PCMCIA wireless cards inside. Many a laptop gained wireless capability for cheap/free because of this!

It was a nice surprise to see a standard AirPort card inside! Least Apple used a good card even in their older AirPort Base Stations! Shall have to keep an eye out for other AirPort Extremes of this vintage or older as I've got a few other Macs that wouldn't say no to an AirPort card or similar!

 

[Elemenoh]

The original airport base station has a big Lucent WaveLAN PCMCIA card inside of it

 

[splorp]

We used to salvage the original grey saucer Airport base stations since they had Orinoco Gold PCMCIA wireless cards inside.

The original airport base station has a big Lucent WaveLAN PCMCIA card inside of it

Great finds! A bonus with these cards is that they will also work in a Newton MessagePad 2x00 or eMate along with the appropriate drivers.

Newton FAQ: Can I use a wireless card in my Newton?

 

[haydonbeagley]

The original airport base station has a big Lucent WaveLAN PCMCIA card inside of it

View attachment 2650

Shall have to look out for one of these cards/or older AirPort Base Stations - my PowerBook G3 (PDQ) wouldn't say no to a WiFi card!