toughbook cf-25 networking problems

hi, i recently purchased a used cf-25 with 2 hard drives, the first is a 4 gig and has windows 95 plus all of the previous owners software, the second is a 12 gig that i put puppy linux budda217 on. i am mostly using it as an mp3 player and all i have been able to use to get stuff on it is the cd rom.... i do have a RIM wireless card that plugs into the cd (mp) port... but im stumped, i guess it is for satalite connections, but i was tryin to use it for 802.11 a/b/g do i have to set up an account with a provider to use this? in the win 95 hard drive it has a config prog called AT&T global that seems to be a dial up thing but i cant seem to figure out how to set it up. in puppy linux it doesnt load or show up at all n when i scan for modules it finds one but after it loads it never says that there is an active device. so i was thinking i could try a pcmcia card but before i go buy one of those should i try to config that RIM card or i was thinking maybe even trying to use the paralell port for networking, but i have never done that before i have just seen printers that go from cat5 to paralelle so i assume it can be done... i saw a few big thinkers on here that have mentioned these RIM cards but alot of them were talking about rewiring the modem to another device or installing a whole diffrent antenna. this i dont want to do. any help would be appriciated. thanks Bob

btw this is the RIM card http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/alan-fm_2007_40155389 i find plenty for sale but no config or setup instructions

 

okay i may die tonight tryin this but please help, i have this DB25 Male to RJ45 Modular Adapter can i use this for networking and internet on this cf-25 or no? i have read alot about it today and it is a bit jumbled in my head as far as the pinout set up. if this will work it'd be sweet.

here is a pic of the exact adapter i have thanks again, Bob
http://www.deepsurplus.com/Network-...pter-Graybrfont-colorblackAs-low-as-0-61-font

 

welcome to the forum -
I don't know anything about the 25, and there is not much on toughbook.wikispaces.com. Does it have a network out jack? if so, that is all you need, if not I think there are PCMCIA ports, so that would be a good route for adding wired or wireless networking.

I don't know what you plan to use the DB25 for - output from your 25 to a network cable? I don't think you can do what I think you are planning with it.

For the RIM card I think you would need a service lan set up.

There may be some info on the toughbooks yahoo group as well.

HTH - I didn't want to leave you hanging...

 

hey thanks so much for the reply, what i was planning to do was run out of my router ethernet n then adapt it to parallel to get into my tough book, i gave up on the rim device and was avoiding the pcmcia slot cause i kept getting these irq errors, but about a half hour ago my freind dropped me off a pcmcia wireless card and i gave it one more go and tada it worked this time, so now i am online! yay

shout-outs to the helpful folks here and at linux questions, and puppylinux forums too hooray for the world wide mind

peas Bob

btw this forum totally kicks! your vaio section really helped me out with my AR320E just reading no asking needed

 

Well, welcome to the forum... LOL

The RIM adapter is probably related to the RIM CDPD adapters we've found in our CF-28s... they use analog cellular, which was discontinued by all major carriers this February. I was going to suggest you try a PCMCIA Network adapter but you'got a wireless connection going, so good for you. Your DB25 to RJ45 adapter is something generally used for proprietary connections; we use something similar for CITRIX connections on older systems. I doubt you'd be able to configure it for any useful networking protocol, of course others may know better than I.

You may want to look into a PCMCIA USB adapter card; if you upgrade to Win98 or ME you can make good use of it to expand your capabilities a lot.

Good luck;

mnem
Heh...gotta keep those dinosaurs running...

 

The DB25 to RJ14 adapter in your link is just a wiring adapter.. no circuitry! Those were used for premise wiring of RS232 "dumb" terminals back in the day, NOT ethernet. If you want to do it that way, you need a parallel-to-ethernet converter module. Such a thing existed, Xircom was well-known for their line of "Pocket Ethernet" adapters. I'm sure you can find one for way-cheap on ebay if you look for it.

Or, of course, you could just go with a PCMCIA ethernet card. These are cheap and plentiful, and I think is the most logical solution.

 

Grav - Didn't those things go the way of ArcNet back in the 90s? I don't ever remember seeing a par to ethernet that was more than 10 mbps... maybe not more than 1 mbps, I can't remember.

mnem
Wow. That's a blast from the past.

 

We used the Xircom parallel port 10BT adapters a lot where i used to work. I'm sure they never came out with a 100Mb adapter, as the parallel port was somewhat of a bottleneck even at 10Mb.