How to save £100 (and try not to break something in the process...)
Today I decided to get the iBook 700 to "do" WiFi. Thoroughly pissed off at the understandably money-grabbing nature of eBayers and retailers alike who think its OK to charge £100-£120 for a discontinued 802.11b card -- I bloody well sure as wasn't! So I had a think about the problem and solved it in a semi-inelegant manner.

Knowing the original Airport 802.11b card was an antenna-less Orinoco Silver and Gold Card sold as an OEM lucent jobbie (also used in Sony VAIOs -- which was once a great way to get an older iBook to do WiFi before it got slashdotted), I had fewer and fewer opions open to me to do this cheaply. I didn't like the cheap USB adapters on eBay as they stick out and actually having an Orinoco/Lucent Silver to hand I first of all I had a quick test to see if the card actually worked. (These are about $16-$20 on eBay if you look hard enough). Removing the plastic cap for the PCMCIA antenna made it a bit easier to get into place -- but it wasn't necessary.

Plugging in the card and powering on, the iBook loaded OS X (10.2.2) which immediately sensed the card's presence; loading the proper settings. It located the Airport Base station (actually an iMac G5 in the house being used as a network DHCP box and overall good-egg print server and desk machine) it dutifully claimed its IP lease as it joined "Galen". Here was the proof; It worked! The next bit was taking the card to the flab farm -- getting it thin enough so that the card will overshoot, yet also fit under the keyboard cavity -- without suffering from the notorious keyboard bulge!

Looking at the card I decided "heck, you're only $16, lets see how much of you we can peel away". I was able to strip away the entire PCMCIA housing. Removing everything surplus to requirements, paying particular attention to the bit that overhung the well in which the Airport card normally goes and stripping it all away for maximum flexion. That also meant removing the RF shielding for the card (which was unnecessary anyway -- the iBook provides plenty from itself and the outside world). The RF shields are like lids held in place by teeth so just pull off and the little teeth left behind can either be soldered off as an entire unit, or they can be bent over (inwards as bending the teeth outwards may touch a PCB track). Checking there were no broken bits lying on the board, I was able to remove everything that added thickness to the card as much as possible -- even the internal Antenna (two L shaped strips of metal with a yellow square of adhesive foam) -- no turning back now! All that added depth was removed except the Antenna socket.

The now stripped bare and very bendy card was then wrapped in electrical insulation tape because there's enough metal on the underside of the iBook to short something out. Tape keeps the card flexibly bendy yet protected from contact with other things under the hood. The cable is threaded round to where the overhanging portion of the iBook is and held in place with a small bit of electrical tape. The airport card clip is also removed gently... its not needed as the skeletal card is held in place pretty well under the keyboard.

Well hey nothing got broken and it fits! The iBook keyboard is back on and while there is a slight bulge, its not really noticeable. It doesn't bend the keyboard enough to touch the LCD screen with the lid closed and that means its very slight, and not enough to scratch the screen even over time. WiFi range is phenomenal (I'll test this later) although probably not due to losing all of the shielding. I seem to recall the older G3 iBooks had pretty of range anyway.

So that's that then! Phew a job well done now to tidy away all the shards of metal, plastic and brew up a cuppa. I'm stoked that nothing got broken (unless you consider ripping off all the shielding and mummifying a PCMCIA card in electrical tape "broken"). Thats nigh-on £100 quid saved -- which is just as well, have you seen the price of a 512Mb RAM stick to go inside an iBook 700? Sheesh!