Verizon PCMCIA Card Just Works

Apple God writes "I was a friend's house and he showed me his Verizion PCMCIA card for internet access. On a whim, I put it in my PowerBook, and it recognized the card and prompted me for authorization to configure the system for use with the card. I entered my password, and was surprised to see an icon in the menu bar for it. I clicked on this icon and selected connect, it worked! I had internet access. Here is a picture of the card that I used. When we checked Verizon's page, they only listed Windows compatibility. To make matters sweeter, my friend was shocked that it 'just worked' because he had to install drivers in XP before it would work."

Comments

the price of better quality gear is worth it.

[infonography]

I don't have an Apple. (Sadly, I already run too many systems Sparc,Linux,windoze) But rebuilding a 2000 era Dell system for my Sister it identified the monitor right off were my recent Gigabyte P4 board still would not. Same OS same method of install same installer (me).

When that box was designed, it was by someone who gave a damn about quality of the parts. I am not suprised that Apple worked. They really are better built boxes.

Re:the price of better quality gear is worth it.

[hype7]

I don't have an Apple. (Sadly, I already run too many systems Sparc,Linux,windoze)

I've heard a fair few excuses in my time but that one is pretty bad.

The fact that you've got so many sounds to me like you're looking for one that is a good one. Give the Apple a shot, you may find that afterwards you're not running nearly as many systems as you are now... :)

-- james

Re:the price of better quality gear is worth it.

[swillden]

But rebuilding a 2000 era Dell system for my Sister it identified the monitor right off were my recent Gigabyte P4 board still would not. Same OS same method of install same installer (me).

That's not the least bit surprising to me, and it doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the components, it has to do with the age of the components and the age of the operating system. If you install an operating system released in 2003, it's pretty reasonable that it won't recognize/have drivers for a component first released in 2004.

Of course, this does show up what I think is a weakness in Windows' driver model the "must have a specific driver for every piece of hardware regardless of the fact that one generic driver can frequently handle lots of devices" problem. What probably happened here was that XP didn't have a good built-in driver for your video card, so it didn't know how to ask your monitor for the EDID data. Either that or maybe Windows has to have some sort of "driver" for each monitor? I hope not, because that's just insane. The system only needs a few bits of information about your monitor (hsync, vsync, max dot clock and name should do it, I think -- maybe some gamma stuff?).

So, I don't think this is an issue of quality hardware (though Apple's is), but quality software. An OS *should* just be able to use a device which complies to relevant standards, or is sufficiently similar to another device for which it has drivers (of course it has to know that the devices are similar, which may be a problem. That's why in Linux you see a lot of questions about which driver should be used with a piece of hardware).

Drivers and USB

[Anonymous Coward]

Every USB interface includes a class, subclass and protocol. There are several well defined combinations such as USB modem, printer, audio and all the HID stuff (joystick, keyboard, mouse etc).

Windows provides HID drivers, but does not provide drivers for any of the other stuff even though it could, which is why it needs drivers for almost any USB peripheral you plug in.

Mac and Linux have default drivers for a lot of the protocols which is why you can just plug things in and have them work.

And the relevance for this topic is that 5220 card is actually a USB controller with a USB modem and some other device (I forget which now) attached. Fortunately there are standard ways of talking to USB controllers as well.

So the real issue isn't being amazed at Mac/Linux not requiring drivers for this card, but why Windows is so damn broken by design that it does require them.

Re:This is newsworthy?

[Muerto]

i am rolling my eyes at you right now. everytime i have ever plugged any piece of hardware into my mac it has always just worked. This is rarely the case wtih my XP box. slashdot is not "apple biased" it's "anti MS.." get it straight.

Saving Money on Support

[jabex]

I think much of the "Not supported on OS X" talk is related to companies not wanting to pay for a cross-platform support staff.

Sprint does this. With their cell service you can get PCS Vision. You're not supposed to use it to go online with your computer (official response is that it's an unofficial feature), but you can. On top of that, it's not supposed to work for Mac, but it does. There's even a PCS Vision modem script built into OS X that ends all the hassle.

The ever ellusive, unsupported feature within an unsupported feature! I imagine companies save some money by just saying "not supported" instead of training a Mac Support team (or rather, hiring one), but I'd be surprised to learn exactly what works on a Mac that isn't supposed to. Makes you wonder...

Re:Consider the nature of the article

[TydalForce]

Actually I think the nature of this article is a bit different. More like "this rather expensive piece of hardware that has no official Mac support actually *works* with no hassle. So you can go buy it with little risk of it not working". I've been looking at these cards myself for a while, but none of them have Mac compatability listed on their websites. Its nice to know I could go get one, pop it in, and not worry about having wasted $300. (c:

what?

[pittnat]

yeah, i agree that it is really cool that our beloved mac os has so many drivers preinstalled, but come on, is this really a /. worthy story?

why is this news ?

[babbage]

What's so impressive with this article? "Guy buys computer where things Just Work, tries it out, learns that things do indeed Just Work. Film at 11."

At my job, we have two managers with Powerbooks and these Verizon cards, and have been using them to little fanfare for perhaps a year now, maybe longer. The only glitch I can think of was that the cards didn't work with when 10.3.3 came out, but they worked fine again with 10.3.4.

Things usually just work with Macs. Why bother making a headline out of what should be obvious to anyone that uses these computers ?

Re:This is newsworthy?

[unclethursday]

$500 and I can build a top of the line PC.

I hear this all the time, and I call bullshit.

Prove that you can make a top of the line PC for $500.

Find a place, and link to it, please, where you can get parts to build a PC with a P4 3.6 GHz/AMD 64 FX with an 800MHz front side bus, 4 GB RAM (or more if you can find a motherboard that supports more), full tower and power supply, GeForce 6800 Ultra/Radeon X800 (with max RAM available), the largest Serial ATA hard drive on the market at 7200 RPMs, a gigabit Ethernet card, and a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro--all for $500 or less.

We'll not include a monitor or speakers, keyboard and mouse in the pricing. Nor will we include the price of an OS.

But those parts are what will make a truly top of the line non-server PC. You said top of the line, now show me how you can build that for $500 or less.