[ale] Ask Mr. RetroScience: PCMCIA I?/II?/III?

[John Mills]

Gurus and Guresses -

I came home with a D-Link model DWL-650, 802.11b PC Card Adapter (i.e,
wireless NIC) for a "PC Card Type II" slot in a ">= 300MHz Pentium" laptop
[it says on the box].

Ultra cheap if purchased in combination with its sibling 802.11b router, 
which also came home with me.

1. I checked Toshiba's specs for my Satellite Pro 430CDT and it says:  
2 at CardBus Type III slots. My innocent guess is the Type II card should be
OK in a Type III slot - is that correct?

2. My little road warrior is only 100 MHz (F00F bug and all). I assume is
I can ignore the ">= 300 MHz" requirement, except maybe for it limiting
transfer speeds. Does that seem reasonable?

3. The Wireless HOW-TO seems to suggest that D-Link uses a common chip
with a Linux driver (prism??? something). Anyone using this card in a
Linux setup?

FWIW, it's a fairly tight Slackware 9.1 installation. (Gotta be, in 1.2GB
drive!) Thrashes along, but generally goes where I point it (if there
isn't too much headwind).

TIA for clearing up the FUD.

 - John Mills
   john.m.mills at alum.mit.edu
   "Yesterday's technology is at least _cheap_!"