bmacfarland

Gizmodo has brought to my attention that T5 wifi drivers exist now

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/pdas/...n-t3-t5-026506

And sure enough they do:

http://www.palmone.com/us/support/do...wifi_card.html

Anyone give it a try or is it likely that there is still a big gap beyond the OS (i.e. memory allocation and heap space and all that techno stuff I should know as a software engineer) that will prevent it from working on the Treo 650?

mikec

I say we get Shadowmite on the case!

Otter Emperor

I agree, but note that the download page on Palmone was posted yesterday and specifically says the following: "You must be installing on either a Tungsten T3, Tungsten T5, or a Zire 72. The Wi-Fi Card does not support other handhelds. "

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bmacfarland

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that it doesn't support the Treo 650 out of the box, but the Treo didn't support DUN either until Shadowmite fixed it. It's worth noting that the T5 has some incredible similarities in architecture to the Treo 650. The Treo 600 didn't share these similarities with any of the Tungsten or Zires.

shadowmite

I'll have to take a look at this I guess... However I don't have a Wi-Fi card... Anyone in XXXXXX that could lend one for the experimentation?

bmacfarland

I was thinking of trying to get one at CompUSA (if they have it) using the reasoning that it's a gift and I'm not sure if it's going work in my cousin's Palm or not. Hopefully they won't charge a restocking fee on gifts.

mbrenner

If anyone is going to spend on time getting a driver to work, look into a wi-fi card with some flash ram in it. People are not going to want to loose their memory to use wi-fi especially since the built in memory of the 650 is so limited.

bmacfarland

Drivers for those wifi cards aren't written for the PalmOS at all. It would be starting from scratch and probably take quite awhile. On the other hand, there are drivers available for a wifi card that works on a very similar device to the Treo 650. One is a research project of like a year, the other is a research & development project of probably less than a week (if it's possible at all) for Shadowmight.

I suspect there are a few people who will swamp out their card for wifi access to Blazer.

shadowmite

Well, I got the PRC/PDB's out of the installer... Looks like it checks for the 650 and disables itself... Hmm... SheriffChecker? Nice name for a file palm... If anyone has a card, I can upload some files soon and have you beta test the patch, but I'll be doing it blind for the most part...

bmacfarland

LOL, that partially confirms what I suspected, that the T5's innards are pretty close to the Treo 650 and the drivers just might work.

I might take a trip to my local CompUSA to see if I can get a card without a restocking fee. I'd hate to pay the 15% to test it out.

swifty

all those who want this should sponsor a card for shadowmite ! :-)

bmacfarland

I'd be willing to kick in some dough, but I'm kind of stingey in that I want to kick in dough only if it can be done. This seems to be a bit of long-shot as drivers as usually very specific for a piece of hardware (at least in my experience).

colorchange

Shadowmite:

YOU DA MAN!!!!


Go get em big dog!

mnmacgeek

set up a paypal account Shadowmite! I'd be willing to donate!

tarkwolf

I have been working on a network at home and have returned 2 items in the last week with no problem. They are not charging restocking during the holidays.

tarkwolf

At this rate some of us will have there WiFi up and running before we get our Treo 650's from VC.

haha

shadowmite

Well, I got the drivers to install on the simulator just fine now... File is a little big... 1.02 meg... Can we get Treo Central to host the file? Heck, I don't even know if it'll work since I don't have a card!...

lnichols

Pretty sad that they have drivers and intentionaly put in code to check if the device is a 650, and if so, not let the driver work. Seems like what PalmOne says at the Roadshow (the development ofWiFi Drivers would take away from 700 development)and what they do in reality are two different things. Hope Shadowmite's "fix" works if nothing more to expose the lies that PalmOne keeps putting out about WiFi in the Treo and how "hard" it would be develop drivers.

Also if it works it should be posted loud and clear that Palm is intentionally disabling drivers for WiFi on the 650. Maybe raising enough hell with this company will make them realize that they need to stay a little more honest with their customers.

Kenundrum

there used to be programs that checked for the processor name on your computer and if it was anything other than genuineintel it would not run... same thing happened with that practice... didn't last long because people with amd complained...

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Nokia N800
previously: Treo 700wx 12/06, Sprint 6700 3/06; Treo 650 11/04; Treo 600 1/04 (gone); Samsung i500 (gone); Hitachi G1000 11/03 (gone); Nokia 7110 5/00(best phone ever)

shadowmite

For right now I'd like to wait on hosting it to everyone until we can get someone to try it... If my DUN patch is any example, the file will spread quickly and I don't want to spread a non-working driver.

I've got it installing properly, but the wifi config screen never comes up asking for the card to be entered. I'm working on it...