New guy with an NEC MobilePro 780

Hello all!

I just got my NEC MobilePro 780 up and running. I had bought it online for $15 and a 20 minute drive. The keyboard had liquid damage, so I tore it apart and cleaned it up. Other than that it is in great shape, the battery even seems to work pretty well! So, I have a couple networking cards I am trying to get working in it. Preferably I would like to get the Cisco Aironet card working. I tried to use the driver that is listed on this site for my particular HPPC, but I get the error listed below. I was wondering if anyone had any insight on that.

Alternatively I have a 3Com card, the file is also available on here, but I am waiting for my donation to get processed so i can download it.




Other than that, anyone else have one of these? Any other tips and tricks and neat ideas of what you use yours for? Is there a good resource for software that can run on these?

Thanks!

Welcome to the site.

What is the file name of the cab you are using?

Thank you!

CiscoHpc211Sh3.cab

That is because the Mobilepros use the MIPS processor...not SH3

Get the correct cab file you should be good to go.

Ah, thanks! I didn't notice that detail. So armed with that have been looking around and tried a few drivers, but they they all tell me now that they are "not compatible with the current OS", it will install, but not run. As far as i can tell they want 3.0 and i have 3.01. Sorry if I am missing something obvious. I haven't messed with any PPC or CE stuff since I had my HTC MDA or my old Compaq.

EDIT: The Core System Version is 2.11, is this what i should be basing my compatibility on?

Edited by sp00nix 2021-11-23 3:52 AM

I figured you were using the wrong cab.

You need compatibility with CE 2.11 or lower, not CE 3. Confusingly, H/PC 3 is not based on CE 3.

Yeah it was a bit confusing . To add to the confusion I did get it to work with a driver listed for the 34x series of cards. All the 350 drivers i could find were only for CE3.0.

So I guess these cards store their AP associations in the card it self, as it just jumped right on to my wifi without any intervention from me. I had this running on an old Windows 3.11 laptop prior, I just had to set the DNS servers. Pretty neat!

Thanks for all the help

FrogFind, ha! Like it!

Glad we got you up and running

Awesome ! :-) I like Nec and HPs units from these years. Glad ya got it working on your wireless etc ;-)

-Walt B

Welcome to the party. Glad to see you got your MobilePro working as you wanted.

I might pick up an Aironet for my Z50, seeing first hand it working on CE 2.11.

I owned a 780 back in the early 00's, I loved it. I use to buy these (used) and set them up with software and Wifi etc and resell them. I knew a guy who had a garage and house full of computer stuff. Was insane lol. But everything good has to come to an end. lol.

Im looking @ Jornada 680 or 720. But I like the Mobilepro 900c and may get one of those. I liked the NEC machines because they were imho easy to work on and take apart. Some of the Palmtops were NOT easy to get apart or even do any work at all to. Was a blessing to be able to pop open one of these and not be breaking clips etc in the process.

-Walt B

It's a neat little search engine that dumbs down the internet for older devices. Works pretty good.

Edited by sp00nix 2021-11-24 10:31 PM

Thanks!

I used this card in a few vintage projects. It's great because it has drivers for older OSs, even DOS and 3.11. It is only WEP though, so be prepared for that. I have a segmented network for connecting the old stuff to.

If you update the firmware on the card (you'll find them in the download centre) the card itself can support WPA. The drivers (and Windows CE 2.11 itself) do not support it however.

Windows 2000+ can support it


Consequently, I always say to people with an Aironet to make sure that the FW is current before you start tinkering.