I have an HP iPaq PDA (personal digital assistant) that’s been sitting on the shelf for over a year. Admittedly, the interest in these devices is waning because their functionality is being replaced by the ever-expanding functionality of mobile phones.
Clare kept asking about it, so I decided to pull it down off the shelf. It’s got some decent games, it’s expandable, and, most notably to this post, it has a slot for a wi-fi card.
What the heck, let’s try to get Internet access working on it. I ordered a card that I thought might work (making sure to save the packaging for an easy return, if necessary) and plugged it in the device.
And…nothing happened. Swell.
Fine, I’ll read the manual and install the drivers.
That’s all it took! The lights on the card started blinking – always a good sign – and it picked up my home wireless network right away.
Pretty cool little trial. I was completely ready for this experiment to fail miserably, but it worked out. Must be my clean living. Now we have yet another device capable of accessing the Internet within the walls of this house. Is that a good thing?
In case you’re interested, the card is a Sparklan Wireless Compact Flash Card Pcket PC 802.11g Wifi – purchased from Amazon via the link in the upper right of this page 😉