I build retro-PCs and use older laptop technologies for my older OS’s (BeOS, ZetaOS, DOS & Win3.11, Win95, and Win98SE) for many reasons (mainly for retro PC gaming). In addition, I no longer maintain a local ethernet network at home anymore as I did back in the '90s and early 2ks. It is WiFi only these days…
For these PCs and laptops (due to the lack of reliable or missing Wifi drivers for the OS, such as DOS 6.22 & Win 3.11 lacking Wifi networking), I cannot use the WiFi natively; hence, I can use the current reliable OS-centric ethernet drivers and the retro-generation ethernet cards such as NE2000 or 3Com Ethernet III ISA/PCI cards that would be native for the OS.
So how do I use the ethernet to connect to WiFi?
I use a handy device (my favorite at this time):
IOGEAR Ethernet-2-WiFi Universal Wireless Adapter (GWU637)
Current specs:
Style: 300 mbps
Wireless connect Ethernet-enabled device to most Wi-Fi networks ((not compatible with Enterprise Authentication)
Turn legacy electronics into high-speed Wi-Fi enabled devices. Operating Range - Indoor up to 100m, Outdoor up to 180m
Supports transfer speeds of up to 300Mbps on 2. 4GHz networks
Compatible with 802. 11b/g/n network standards
You should see BeOS v5 or Zeta 1.21 BeShare application downloading files or using FireFox 2 or 3.0a1 downloading files from a Web site such as ‘download.unirc.eu/BeOS’ for some older BeOS software to play with. (I really do enjoy the quickness since the telemetry tracking / privacy invasion BS does not exist in these generations of Internet software.) Wish I could locate a Web site for Zeta OS software…but I will find more info about that later.
This work around is an excellent option for the more modern laptops and PCs where Haiku recognizes the ethernet card and not the WiFi card. You can quickly set-up ethernet to use. If you need to try it–it works great!!