PCMCIA Cards Hiding in Linksys Routers

As some eagle-eyed viewers have pointed out, I didn't notice during filming that Windows connected to the internal adapter at the end there, and didn't realize it until after uploading. The wireless-g card does indeed work if you disable the built-in adapter, and the link light blinks as well!

Anyone remember PCMCIA standing for People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.

Oh man, this brings back bad memories of working for a university. The then president of the university wanted us to be the first campus in the US with the entire campus covered in WiFi. So he rushed to put in a bunch of A/B access points, even though we knew G was right around the corner. So I spent an entire winter break going around to every Cisco AP and swapping out the PC Cards for new G cards.

For those not familiar with PCMCIA, PC Card and CardBus, the bus that's used for the original PC card is essentially an extension of the 16-bit ISA bus. CardBus upgrades that to basically be a 32-bit PCI bus and those cards have the golden strip with rivets near the connector end. ExpressCard succeeded PC Card and CardBus by switching over to PCI Express (also supports USB).

12:18 The screw for the hard drive cover is right next to that long black one.

Just a little tip for any desoldering with solder wick for anyone who could use it, a little bit of extra flux will go a long way in pulling solder up into the wick

I used to watch TV on my laptop with a PCMCIA TV tuner, back in the day...

Having a second computer to help diagnose and repair the other one was a game changer

I do testing and configuration for PCBA's for a living and I'm 99% sure those tabs on the first board were test points. From the looks of it, they most likely had a test bed that the card would slip into for automated testing. Oh, as for drivers, the install software is usually optional. Just go into properties for the device, click the update driver button, and point it to the folder containing the drivers. If it's an exe like the first card, try opening it with something like 7-zip. Often, especially back in the old days, these were just executable zip files. If so, extract it to a folder and there should be a sub-folder containing the drivers, just point it to that folder.

5:47 nothing screams „Don‘t you dare and try to service me!“ louder than a soldered case 😤

Oh man! This brings up so many memories. A few notes: a) scanning won't work with that old of a firmware. That's normal. b) Prism 1 is super old, and I don't remember ever seeing any of those, but the IDs (0x0156, 0x002) seem to be the same with the later-gen hardware, so perhaps it'll work with newer firmware? (see below) c) There were multiple drivers for Prism: hermes/orinoco, hostap, and linux-wlan-ng. I don't think linux-wlan-ng was ever merged, and I think it did not use the (then) standard tooling, iwconfig, but a custom one. orinoco was the default. hostap was the more experimental one, but eventually became by far the most mature one, with its code later on getting promoted to be the kernel's 802.11 subsystem (the very same one we use today!). The drivers may conflict with each other, i.e. you need to "rmmod" one (and all of its sub-modules), to "modprobe" the other one (see below). d) the firmware that you'd typically see in a store-bought PCMCIA card was supporting "infrastructure" and adhoc mode in hardware; Linux implemented AP mode by implementing most parts of 802.11 in software (the HostAP project). I don't remember how these access points implemented it, but It's possible they had special firmware. The hardware actually had multiple slots for firmware (primary, station etc), and there was also a "bootloader" firmware that only allowed for further flashing - it's also possible that's what you have. The most important point is that you can flash the firmware in RAM, instead of in the non-volatile space, which should allow non-destructive tests. In these old Debian/Ubuntu distros, try installing the package "hostap-utils" (and take note of the maintainer's name ;), run "hostap_diag eth0", and then "prism2_srec --help". The package will also drop a /etc/modprobe.d snippet that blacklists the orinoco driver, so that the hostap driver is able to drive the card instead (needs a reboot). http://junsun.net/linux/intersil-prism/ has some good notes. http://junsun.net/linux/intersil-prism/IDtable.html seems to suggest hardware 8002 (which I think is what you have) is supported. BTW, I'd recommend next time instead of cutting the test pads, to try separating the Thinkpad's motherboard from its case. There were also PCMCIA extenders at the time, well as PCMCIA->PCI cards you could buy, but not sure how easy they are to find these days. But perhaps I'm getting too sentimental with these museum pieces ;)

Just like the OG access point from Apple. Man, I miss the early/mid 2000s Linksys time period.

Dude! I can't tell you how excited I am over this video. It's not for no reason, just that I experimented with so much hardware during this era. There was so much more elegance in design. Like yeah, nah it's all the same chipset running everything. THE INTERNET :)

The plastic boots over the antennas on the newer Linksys routers is actually removable, exposing the same physical metal base on the antennas.

I still have that exact Linksys 2.4GHz G wifi card laying around somewhere. It was my main tool for doing packet captures on unsecured networks in college. Fun times.

Was watching some unrelated videos and then found this recommended to me. I don't know if I'm the only one fascinated by wireless routers, but seeing a bunch of them on the thumbnail, instantly click on and watch it.

I had to laugh when you mention the game adapter in the documentation and immediately pull one out.

PCMCIA cards were used quite a bit as a component in wireless devices because you could get the wireless card certified ONCE, and then use it as a drop-in module for whatever device needed WiFi connectivity. IIUC, changes to the design require recertification, so it makes tons of sense to only do this when the RF design actually needs to change, vs. incremental updates on every device that has a radio in it. It's the same reason many devices now use those little postage stamp PCBs with the drilled castellations along the edge. You just solder that little bugger to your main PCB, and voila, you shortcut the certification needed to sell your device with WiFi, BT, or cellular radios. The only time it makes sense to integrate the RF design is when 1) you're confident that you'll get the design right the first or second time (no changes and respins and recertifications); 2) you know you're going to make enough of them that the bespoke design certification costs are less than the cost of including larger, slightly more expensive pre-fabbed modules and the interfaces / assembly steps to integrate them. So, an iPhone will be fully integrated. Maybe also later revisions of a mature and essentially perfected router design sold by the truckload to chain computer stores. Everybody else will use a drop-in module.

All of those Linksys routers have metal threaded UNDER the plastic. I’ve taken them off before. ;)

When my Dad was with IBM as a distributed systems engineer I acquired soooo many of these and other server parts. He was constantly bringing home either brand new stuff or high tier hardware that was being replaced with brand new stuff. Needless to say when I finally got into IT and computers, I had a field day when I learned what it all did. lol