Filed under: Wireless, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends, Apple
Happy birthday, Airport
Ok, so we're a day late, but seven years ago yesterday Apple introduced their fabulous Airport technology. Check out the press release (Apple worked with Lucent on the Airport technology) and this article in CNN describing both the new Airport technology and the iBook, 'the first computer designed for wireless networking from the start.'My how time flies.
Here's my question: when did you first setup a wireless network in your home? Winter 2001 is when my apartment had wireless for the very first time.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Peter Koritschan said 2:22PM on 7-22-2006
Scott, I remember using my first wireless laptop (and yes, that was before I switched to Mac) in January 2001 in the main hub at my school (UCSB) in Santa Barbara... it was great, as they had airports set up all over the building...
As for home, I didn't get a wireless setup until October 2002 in Switzerland....
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Rob Knight said 2:28PM on 7-22-2006
Me and wireless go WAYYYYYYY back to...Christmas 2005. Those were the days.
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R031E5 said 2:30PM on 7-22-2006
My first wireless was... uhm... I don't remember. Oh oh yeah! Christmas 2004!. I got it with my new internet connection, :( . Hey at least I have one now!
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Robert Smelser said 2:32PM on 7-22-2006
Didn't Dell claim to be first with wireless capabilities something like a year later? I thought I remembered it from CNet or PCWorld, but I can't seem to find it now.
Am I wrong in remembering this? Thanks!
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iamdigitalman said 2:37PM on 7-22-2006
well, my first wifi was way back in 2002. when my mother got her new laptop (a toshiba), we got a free wifi card and router. the laptop DID have built in wifi, but it died somehow. unfortunantly, both the card and the router are dead too.
currently, we finally got a new DSL modem with built in wifi 3 months ago. my mother got a new card, I got a new card for my powerbook G3 (wallstreet), and everyone's happy.
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Kyle Johnson said 2:50PM on 7-22-2006
I got the first airport base station and an iBook with the built in card for it the Christmas after it came out. So that means about six and a half years ago (Christmas of 1999). The funny thing was she could wander around the apartment on wireless, but until someone made a PC Card for the Mac I had to have a long ethernet cable for my Powerbook.
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Craig said 3:26PM on 7-22-2006
August 2004, when I got my first laptop (a Centrino) but I only got it fully working in Jan 06! I blame it on too much school work and trying to get a Belkin card to work with a Linksys router. Hopefully I'll be adding a MacBook to the network soon!!!
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Hawthorne2k said 3:39PM on 7-22-2006
I set up an Airport-based network in the photo studio I was working in the winter of 1999 (hey, so what if it took twn minutes for an 18mb TIF to transer? It was *wireless* ! :-) ), and my home network has been up since the fall of 2000. Still on the original hub, too. I was fortunate to avoid the capacitor problems a lot of people have had with the original "UFO" Airport hubs.
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Shoaib said 3:51PM on 7-22-2006
It was winter of 1999, my dad had gotten airport for his medical office, but it interfered with some of the equipment, so he brought it home and used it.
(It does the garage of my house now:)
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mrtotes said 4:15PM on 7-22-2006
hmm... 7 years... and nothing has been refreshed recently. All the Airport products are a little long in the tooth now.
Why is there a v90 modem in the AEBS?
Why no DSL modem?
Why still so expensive?
Why no pre-802.11n networking?
Why no NAS capability?
Why stop making Airport Original cards when they are so sought after?
Airport was promising in the early days but it's well behind the curve now. Is there anything AEBS can do that a 3rd party device for half the cost can't do better?
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frank said 4:51PM on 7-22-2006
Mine was about the winter of 1999. When I moved into my first apartment at college. That was a sweet rig.
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steve said 4:53PM on 7-22-2006
Funny that my AEBS stopped working yesterday. If anyone can help me, please comment on my thread at Apple Support Discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=569938&tstart=0
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William Jackson said 4:56PM on 7-22-2006
Wireless since fall '99.
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Christian said 4:58PM on 7-22-2006
Airport is one of those technologies that Apple is under-creditted for. At the time of its release, the Airport Base Station and Airport cards were cheaper and worked better than any other wireless devices on the market. And since Apple started pushing them in all their devices, they quickly lent credibility to WiFi technology, then still in its infancy (IEEE 802.11b was ratified in 1999). Apple wasn't the absolute first to market, but they were the first to market with any significant presence. Seven years later, WiFi is ubiquitous.
I agree with other commenters that Apple's Airport Extreme equipment is showing its age, but I strongly applaud Apple for not adopting any of the "pre-N" technology, since none of the "pre-N" standards have been officially ratified (and have, indeed, changed several times since the first "pre-N" devices rolled out two years ago). I'd like to see a cheaper AEBS, and a big price drop on the Airport Express.
@mrtotes: Yes, there is. Configuring an AEBS with a Mac is [still] 5x easier than any other wireless device on the market.
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Kristen said 4:59PM on 7-22-2006
November 3, 2003. I set up my new iBook G4 and AirPort for the first time. Back then I only had dial-up.
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Mark D. said 5:17PM on 7-22-2006
I first went wireless sometime in 2003, with a cheap generic card for my then-acceptable Compaq laptop. It was soon upgraded to the Orinoco Silver (similar to the chipset in Airport originally, if I recall) and eventually to a nice netgear 802.11g card to go with my then-new router.
Now I have a MBP and enjoy/lament the built-in simplicity of it's wifi (I miss being able to double range on my Orinoco with an antenna, but I don't miss having a lump on the side of my laptop.) I actually can't wait to see if any good wifi cards are developed for the new slot form factor.
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Philip said 6:36PM on 7-22-2006
I got my first Wireless Network 2002. It is a SMC Barricade 2.4 Ghz Braodband Router. And it works perfect for 4 years now...
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Tyler Armstrong said 6:42PM on 7-22-2006
Jan. 2003. I was 17, and It was a Linksy Wireless B router and network card. Very primitave in its 'hook up' features. Worked great until 2005 when Lightning ran into it, now its a netgear wireless g and a macbook pro :)
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UncleJerry said 7:14PM on 7-22-2006
I bought my first Mac, a G4 iBook the summer of 04 from the Apple web site. I forgot to order the Airport Extreme with it so I ran down to Frys and bought one a couple of days before the iBook even arrived. So I was actually wireless before I could use it...
I've only had one problem with it and a quick reset fixed that. So much better than anything my pc friends have had to deal with on their wireless networks.
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Jacob Hackamack said 8:14PM on 7-22-2006
I remember going back to 2000 with the Airport Base Station and an ibook with an iMac.
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