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.

possible reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/verizonbroa dbandaccesssupport.html

Were you running 10.3.5? Since those drivers were released a month before 10.3.5, I suspect they were included in it, and that would explain the card "just work"ing.

FWIW

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:What OS version?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the Verizon drivers (/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Verizon.menu, /System/Library/Extensions/IOSerialFamily.kext/Con tents/PlugIns/AppleVerizonSupport.kext) first were included in 10.2, but don't recall for sure. (AC 'cause I'm Apple.)

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:What OS version?

[byolinux]

Thanks Steve

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: