One of my Macs is an old Power Mac G4 (MDD) running Tiger 10.4.11. It's
always been hooked up to the Internet hard-wired with Ethernet but I've
been wanting to switch to Wi-Fi.

I was wondering if someone could recommend the best Airport model to
use with this system, someone on a MacRumours.com blog said making an
"older network" on the router would be best for compatibility, he said
he uses the WPA2 security and his Airport works fine with that.

Apple has put out several different Airport models over the years
(802.11n, A1034, M5757) that are all available on eBay and I don't want
to buy one that's too new to work with this system, but of course I'd
like to have the fastest connection possible.

BTW I have already downloaded some Airport Utility software that's
supposed to work with Tiger for the router configuration but I haven't
installed it yet. If there's anything important you can remember to do
while setting it up I'd like to know that as well. I was looking at
some tips for the settings from Apple at
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202068

Thanks.

On 2023-08-15 04:03, super70s wrote:
> One of my Macs is an old Power Mac G4 (MDD) running Tiger 10.4.11. It's
> always been hooked up to the Internet hard-wired with Ethernet but I've
> been wanting to switch to Wi-Fi.
>
> I was wondering if someone could recommend the best Airport model to use
> with this system, someone on a MacRumours.com blog said making an "older
> network" on the router would be best for compatibility, he said he uses
> the WPA2 security and his Airport works fine with that.
>
> Apple has put out several different Airport models over the years
> (802.11n, A1034, M5757) that are all available on eBay and I don't want
> to buy one that's too new to work with this system, but of course I'd
> like to have the fastest connection possible.
>
> BTW I have already downloaded some Airport Utility software that's
> supposed to work with Tiger for the router configuration but I haven't
> installed it yet. If there's anything important you can remember to do
> while setting it up I'd like to know that as well. I was looking at some
> tips for the settings from Apple at
> https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202068

If you have the app "MacTracker" you can match up by year.

AFAICT all G4's, except the first year, come equipped (sometimes
optionally) with WiFi 802.11 b or better - so I assume by AirPort you
don't mean the card that can go into some Macs (iMac, etc.).

OTOH, you don't need the Apple AirPort - any 802.11b (ish) capable WiFi
modem should do the the job. There are probably gazillions available
second hand.

For that matter, if you go down to your town's recycling centre, dig
through the electronics pile. I bet you'll find plenty of discarded
WiFi modem routers to do the job. RRR!

--
“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
-Ronald Coase

In article <ubfbg2$2o8pb$1@dont-email.me>, super70s
<super70s@super70s.invalid> wrote:

> One of my Macs is an old Power Mac G4 (MDD) running Tiger 10.4.11. It's
> always been hooked up to the Internet hard-wired with Ethernet but I've
> been wanting to switch to Wi-Fi.
>
> I was wondering if someone could recommend the best Airport model to
> use with this system, someone on a MacRumours.com blog said making an
> "older network" on the router would be best for compatibility, he said
> he uses the WPA2 security and his Airport works fine with that.

any wifi router will work. an apple airport is not required. old wifi
routers are very cheap, possibly free, since nobody wants something
that old anymore. if it's a more recent model, you may need to enable
802.11g (or 'compatible' mode), which could be off by default since it
being on will slow down the more modern protocols.