IBM Wireless Lan Entry - 8227 Access Point

[Kevin Moonlight]

I saw a post's about these things here not too long ago, and honestly not even sure where else to ask that I do not just get strange looks.

I have been trying to find one of the 8227 access point for over a year now, has one ever even come up for sale in recent years? I do not need any cards as I already have some, just trying to get my hands on an A/P and each say it seems more and more like a pipe dream.

Thanks!
Kevin

[ekb...@vnet.ibm.com]

On Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 2:57:02 AM UTC-4, Kevin Moonlight wrote:
> I have been trying to find one of the 8227 access point for over a year now, has one ever even come up for sale in recent years? I do not need any cards as I already have some, just trying to get my hands on an A/P and each say it seems more and more like a pipe dream.

I'm pretty sure that I saw one within IBM some 20+ years ago. It wasn't popular with customers, and we used it for some breif testing, then got rid of it.

[Kevin Moonlight]

I believe the only real world picture I have ever seen of one may be the one on I believe Tim Clarke's desk otherwise I would question if it ever saw the light of day!

I am able to use the cards without the access point of course, but I would love to have a complete system to document and play with. I even have an 8227XR card for local program load, but no access point itself.

[WBSTClarke]

I still have it. At 500Kbps it's no speed demon and I had to R(I)PL it as I never found an XR card. I also have the Wireless LAN Advanced ISA/MCA adapters, PCMCIA cards and antenna modules, for the later 1Mbps development, which I tested with an OS/2 Warp Server 85.

Packing, shipping and customs duties would likely be too excessive across "The Pond" nowadays.

[Kevin Moonlight]

After all these years you still have it! Yes certainly not the fastest, and 500Kbps even seems optimistic even when a few units are talking! I have never seen the an ISA/MCA adapter aside from documentation but I do randomly have one antenna/transmitter. Technology moved so fast with WiFi being official only a few years later.

If you are ever ready to part ways with it I would love the opportunity to purchase it, I hope an issue that I say that.

Kevin

[WBSTClarke]

Well, 500Kbps is the bandwidth, not potential maximum throughput (quoted at <=350Kbps).

The 500Kbps Wireless LAN Entry:
https://www.ardent-tool.com/8227/8227.html
needs to be distinguished from the 1Mbps Wireless LAN Advanced:
https://www.ardent-tool.com/NIC/Wireless_LAN.html

Which part of the world are you in? Processing a request will take some time, as I have a long list and currently reduced time available.

[Kevin Moonlight]

I am in Canada, but I have a friend in the U.K that could receive it for a more local shipping.

[Kevin Moonlight]

Were there additional disks for the 8227 besides the Opt1 and Utl1? I have tried the ones that Tim provided that are on the website, I also generated my own from the 8227ut01.exe and 8227op91.exe which appear to be identical to the images on ardent-tool once written to a floppy.

As I may have an 8227 unit soon (fingers crossed) I have started to look a bit closer at my 8227-XR card and how to read the current configuration off it (for fun I look to see any old location names etc), and then how to load my configuration onto it, to use the LPL method.

In the book e2sb5001.boo (on ardent-tool) , Section 3.1 “Before You Begin” under Step6 talks about a command “apboot” that will generate the bootdisk to use on a support laptop for the purposes of updating the flash in the 8227-XR card. It seems that file does not exist in c:\apconfig after running the install, and it also does not appear anywhere on the disks.

Additionally, F.0 Appendix F “Boot Diskette Information” refers to FLDSK.SYS which given the name I think may be what I am looking for to gain access to reading and writing to the 8227-XR internal flash.

--
Kevin Moonlight

[Louis Ohland]

Uh, there was one announcement letter on the 8227 access point, and it
refers to only two

* 2 diskettes containing device drivers, driver enablers, adapter
diagnostics, and bridge software

BUT this does not rule more diskettes out.

[Louis Ohland]

https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/7/897/ENUS194-197/index.html&request_locale=en

[Louis Ohland]

Network Support Files
/pub/pccbbs/network

wle11d1.exe 283047 10-30-96 W/L Lan Entry Install Disk 1
wle11d2.exe 278547 10-30-96 W/L Lan Entry Install Disk 2
wle11dsk.exe 651110 10-30-96 W/L Lan Entry DOS, OS/2, Novell
wle11dsk.txt 396 10-30-96 W/L Lan Entry Text File
***wlew95.exe 646841 10-30-96 W/L Lan Entry w/Win95
wllan1.exe 609638 03-13-96 IBM RF Wireless LAN Disk 1 of 6 -Utility
wllan2.exe 590661 03-13-96 IBM RF Wireless LAN Disk 2 of 6-Netware
wllan3.exe 957095 03-13-96 IBM RF Wireless LAN Disk 3 of 6 Dos/Win
wllan4.exe 1133974 03-13-96 IBM RF Wireless LAN Disk 4 of 6 OS/2 1/3
wllan5.exe 897849 03-13-96 IBM RF Wireless LAN Disk 5 of 6 OS/2 2/3
wllan6.exe 839948 03-13-96 IBM RF Wireless LAN Disk 6 fo 6 OS/2 3/3
wlple.exe 863643 09-28-95 Wireless LAN Entry Install 1.0

On 7/2/2021 02:05, Kevin Moonlight wrote:

[Louis Ohland]

ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/networking/pub/products/wireless/ccard/lan_entry/


8227op101.dsk
8227ut101.dsk
acptarti.zip
acptimg.zip
loaddskf.exe
oper-lpl-v2.exe
util-lpl-v2.exe
wle11dsk.txt
wle11dsk.zip
wledisk1.zip
wledisk2.zip

[Louis Ohland]

ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/networking/pub/products/wireless/ccard/Wireless_LAN/

readme.txt
wllan1.exe
wllan2.exe
wllan3.exe
wllan4.exe
wllan5.exe
wllan6.exe

[WBSTClarke]

I would expect FLDSK.SYS would be a standard PCMCIA/PC Card driver for Flash Memory cards, probably with another name in, say, the PlayAtWill package, for use on a laptop with the XR card to write the "operational disk" to the root of the drive that appears to the laptop.

Are you expecting the 8227 from David Beem or me? I'm a little confused by different messages and e-mails I've seen. David's would be cheaper in shipping, undoubtedly.

[Kevin Moonlight]

Lots of information for me to look over today re: 8227. I agree FLDSK.SYS should be standard, I have tried a similar drivers without luck so far.

David Beem has a duplicate for me that we will arrange soon, I am cautious though as murphy's law (sod's law?) will have it that the mail man loses it.

[Kevin Moonlight]

Thank you Louis,

Maybe time I take a trip to the optometrist.

oper-lpl-v2.exe and util-lpl-v2.exe generate disk images that contain the files referenced in the documentation, including FLDISK.SYS

I will try this evening reading and writting to the 8227 XR card.

[Tomasz Maciejewski]

Hi
Do you have the one for sale? I am interested in.

[Kevin Moonlight]

On Thursday, 25 November 2021 at 18:19:51 UTC-5, Tomasz Maciejewski wrote:
> Hi
> Do you have the one for sale? I am interested in.

I have the one I got from IBMMuseum. Are you looking for one to "collect" or you want something to use. If you are looking to get something online for playing around with the cards, you can use just about any 486 that has PCMCIA, I have run the 8227 AP image on an old thinkpad and more recently a small industrial PC from Japan. Just have to make small change to use the pcmcia ethernet card in place of the onboard ethernet of the 8227. You may already know this but just mentioning in case you had not looked into it.

you have the pcmcia cards already? do you have any of the pcmcia cards marked 8227?

[Sports Bar TV Systems]

I have access point and cards in usa if someone is interested please pm.
J