prism2.device and Netgear MA401

I bought myself a NetGear MA401 Wireless 16bit PCMCIA card off ebay which arrived today.

I downloaded the prism2.device archive, copied pccard.library to libs: prism2.device to devs:networks and the config program to C: and put it in my user-startup as 'C:SetPrismDefaults SSID NETGEAR'.  I installed MiamiDX and rebooted.

I set up the correct device and all the TCP/IP details, but I keep getting "Unable to open SANA-II device 'devs:Networks/prism2.device' unit 0'.

I run snoopdos, which shows prsim2.device loading ok, pccard.library loading ok, but failing on prometheus.library.  :-?   I don't have a prometheus, but a download and copy it to libs: anyway, this time snoopdos gives an ok to all three, but i still get the same error message.

I've tried v0.7 and v0.8 and neither work.  I put the card into my laptop and it was detected straight away and the light on it came on.  The light does not come on when in my a1200.

I'm baffled.  Do I have a dead PCMCIA port?  Prepcard show there is an unknown writeprotected card present though.

Anyone got this working at all?

linux kernel output ID's the card as

orinoco 0.13e (David Gibson , Pavel Roskin , et al)
orinoco_cs 0.13e (David Gibson , Pavel Roskin , et al)
eth1: Station identity 001f:0006:0001:0003
eth1: Looks like an Intersil firmware version 1.3.6
eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported
eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key
eth1: MAC address 00:09:5B:27:D9:F7
eth1: Station name "Prism  I"
eth1: ready
eth1: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 17, io 0x0100-0x013f

[djbase]

I have a MA401 working here in my A1200. Do installed the Reset patch too?

DJBase wrote:
I have a MA401 working here in my A1200. Do installed the Reset patch too?

The only reset patch i have installed is blizkick and some of it's modules.

[djbase]

Try these two packages too:

CardReset
CardPatch

[x56h34]

This is probably due to the PCMCIA A1200 reset bug.
You can fix this with BlizKick as well, by downloading CardReset and CardPatch from Aminet. Those are modules for BlizKick which you will need to put in your BlizKick line.

That's an easy way to fix the PCMCIA problem. Another solution is the hardware mod. :-)

DJBase wrote:
Try these two packages too:

CardReset
CardPatch

Those two did the trick!

Thanks very much. :-D

x56h34 wrote:
This is probably due to the PCMCIA A1200 reset bug.
You can fix this with BlizKick as well, by downloading CardReset and CardPatch from Aminet. Those are modules for BlizKick which you will need to put in your BlizKick line.

That's an easy way to fix the PCMCIA problem. Another solution is the hardware mod. :-)

Nenad to the rescue yet again. ;-)

Software hacks will do me nicely thankyou, me and a soldering iron are an unsuitable couple!

[x56h34]

DjBase's suggestion works too. :-)

Since you are already using BlizKick, I guess it's kind of neater to insert an extra module or two into your BlizKick line, other than to run separate little programs as well as your BlizKick line. :-)

Woohoo!!

This message was sent using the abysmal AWEB that comes with OS3.9.

My 1200 is well and truly hooked up to my wifi network! :-D

Thanks a lot guys! :pint:

[x56h34]

Is the WiFi card worth getting? I'd assume that speed would be about the same as a regular PCI/Zorro ethernet card.

I think that we definitely need some better wireless support for Amiga in the PCI card form (Elbox) or Zorro (Jens/Individual Computers).

I wish only that if Elbox releases such a card that they will not pull a "Spider" with it, e.g. force a propriatery product on Mediator users which should actually be free of such things as the whole point is to be able to buy cheap ($10-$20 range) off the shelf cards.

x56h34 wrote:
Is the WiFi card worth getting? I'd assume that speed would be about the same as a regular PCI/Zorro ethernet card.

I think that we definitely need some better wireless support for Amiga in the PCI card form (Elbox) or Zorro (Jens/Individual Computers).

I wish only that if Elbox releases such a card that they will not pull a "Spider" with it, e.g. force a propriatery product on Mediator users which should actually be free of such things as the whole point is to be able to buy cheap ($10-$20 range) off the shelf cards.

It's excellent, i reccommend it strongly.  Works like a charm.

Shame that Amiga browsers are all crap though! :-(

[djbase]

I would prefer a PCI NIC or CNET card. This WiFi is really slow compared to the other solutions.

DJBase wrote:
I would prefer a PCI NIC or CNET card. This WiFi is really slow compared to the other solutions.

It seems alright to me, it's very difficult to reach maximum throughput on any NIC, wifi or otherwise.

I have a Netgear 108Mbps WiFi Router and Cardbus adaptor in my laptop.  The 802.11b one isn't much slower if i'm totally honest.

[patrik]

@mdma:

There is atleast some difference, check the results posted in this news.


/Patrik

patrik wrote:
@mdma:

There is atleast some difference, check the results posted in this news.


/Patrik

Oh yeah, there is some difference but the tradeoff for not having to run a big feckoff cable down the stairs and across two rooms to plug into an RJ45 socket, makes it worthwhile! :-D