We’ve been testing ADS Technologies’ USB PC Card with the Wallstreets here at the PowerPage H.Q. and it’s been working pretty well. It uses an ADB pass-through connector to get extra juice for the USB ports, and has the USB ports right on the PC card, instead of a dongle-thingy.
We tested the iMac keyboard and mouse, Griffin’s iMate, and a Gravis GamepadPro. The iMac peripherals worked flawlessly, the iMate emulated the iMac’smouse and keyboard flawlessly, but we couldn’t get the Gamepad to work.Also, the Kensington 4-button ADB mouse we tried only showed up as aone-button mouse through the iMate.
So what’s the hold-up on getting these cards shipped? It’s Apple’s USBdrivers. Currently, you have to use a pre-release version of the USBdevelopment kit’s drivers to get any USB PC card to work. Installing thepre-release drivers is not for the faint-of-heart, but if you’re handy withResEdit, it should be a piece of cake.
Previous PowerPage articles have noted prior successes with various USBcards and the pre-release USB drivers. If you have any USB PC card, go tothe MacOS USB DDK v1.3f9 page for the driver.