Networking options for a A1200

[blongden]

I'm in the process of restoring / upgrading an old A1200 and I'd like to get network connectivity. The options for PCMCIA wifi cards seem to look like they could work but only up to wireless B, and I highly doubt a 68020 is up to the task of decrypting WPA2 on the fly (please correct me if i'm wrong, or there's a hardware solution for this!). I do plan on an expansion in the near future (maybe even a vampire, that I know has the option of onboard ethernet).

Has anyone else tried hooking up a regular ethernet port to a wifi bridge (either vampire or just with a pcmcia ethernet card)? I would assume that offloads much of the encryption stuff to the bridge and lessens the load on the amiga. Unfortunately I don't have the option of wired ethernet, though I wish I did.

[RetroPassion]

Get a wifi 2 ethernet plug in converter. It takes your wifi down to an ethernet port.

[kolla]

Old Apple Airport Expresses do this quite well.
OrangePi Zero with Armbian too.

[Tumbleweed]

A plipbox will also do the job. Connects to the parallel port. I run one on my A3000D and works quite well. Not as fast as zorro network card like an x-surf but does the job. I can connect to my home network Samba shares and the web.
 

[AndyFC]

Has anyone else tried hooking up a regular ethernet port to a wifi bridge (either vampire or just with a pcmcia ethernet card)?

Hi blongden. I used a TP-Link Wireless N nano router for a while, set in Client Mode which did exactly what you are asking. As long at the router had estabished it's connection to the wifi before I ran MiamiDx it worked well. The limitation was the reliability of wifi signal when I moved my devices so I swapped to a set of Powerline adapters (like RetroPassion's suggestion above) and these have been great; the connection is reliable and established quickly so by the time I run Miami the Powerline adapter is ready.

I didn't notice any difference with connection speed between the two options. The Amiga is the limiting factor and I could get downloads of about 2Mbps but that would max out my '030.

[blongden]

Turns out getting hold of a compatible PCMCIA ethernet card is not easy! Plenty of compatible cards on ebay without dongles (no use). Guess I just have to keep checking!

[kolla]

There’s also this…
https://github.com/niklasekstrom/clockport_pi_interface

[blongden]

I saw this... I'm actually quite tempted to try it. Amazing what you can do with a clock port and 64kb of shared mem...!

[AndyFC]

Turns out getting hold of a compatible PCMCIA ethernet card is not easy! Plenty of compatible cards on ebay without dongles (no use). Guess I just have to keep checking!

Roughly whereabouts are you based? I have an unused 3com PCMCIA card which I would need to check is working, but I want to ensure it's worth trying to get it to you first.

[n9yty]

The new PiStorm32 is worth looking at perhaps. It has many benefits beyond the networking, but it would give you that as well.