Re: wireless comms/networking

From: Richard (rh86_at_no.spam)
Date: 08/19/04 

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:39:04 -0700

Jeffrey Dutky wrote:
> I'm an amatuer electronics hacker (a couple of
> college courses and a bunch of reading) and I'm
> interested in fooling around with wireless
> networking stuff.

Depending on what you're wanting to get out of the experience...

Getting a seemingly "simple" PC Card WiFi integrated with a device
(microcontroller) is a dubious task unto itself, let alone starting with
RF chips. (See http://www.iosoft.co.uk/ for an early authoritative
source on doing this). Building your own with WiFi RF chips is probably
well outside the realm of hobbyists.

If you're just looking to WiFi-enable widgets, check out the WiFi
versions of Digi's and Lantronix's very slick Ethernet-in-a-jack
products:

http://www.digi.com/products/embeddeddeviceservers/index.jsp
http://www.lantronix.com/products/eds/wiport/index.html