20th February 2005, 3:12 PM
Sorry ABF, but honestly ethernet support really would be silly. How exactly would you play a handheld? I mean, I play a lot of portable games at home, on my bed, but I still like being able to move around and go to all sorts of other places around town and still play the game.
I say this because I have experience with being tethered to the wall with a portable. My mother has a laptop made like... I dunno, the MONTH before built in wifi support became a required laptop standard. So it's very powerful and all, can play modern games pretty well, but it lacks a wifi device built in. Now, she has bought both a PCMCIA card for wifi and a USB device, but neither of them work. To be more accurate, when I plug the USB device into my own PC, it works fine, but not on her laptop. From what I can gather, neither the PCMCIA or USB ports provide enough sheer electricity to send a strong, stable, signal. I gather this from other techy repair peoples telling me about similar problems. The laptop just isn't wifi capable... at all really. Plug in one of those adapters and you get a signal that drops randomly even within 2 inches of the source. Now, the wifi router she has DOES work great with a good laptop. I've tested it with good laptops and the connection is unbreakably solid from front yard to back, and it's in the second story.
Point is, her laptop can't make use of this, only guests can, so she has to string a super long ethernet cable all across the house to wherever she wants to use the laptop. She hates it too. It's very annoying. Also, with that setup, you can bet little kids have tripped over the cord enough to break the little plastic bits on BOTH ends, and also the plastic bit inside the ethernet port itself so she has to tape the cord into place on top of everything. Wifi is the ONLY workable solutionl, and she doesn't have it. Honestly I think her best bet is to just back up the files she wants to keep (save files for MY games mostly) and sell it to buy a new one WITH wifi support.
Look, don't get me wrong, on a system that's meant to be in one place, it's no biggy, but TRUST me when I say that the average person DOES want to move around and being tethered for net access on a portable presents a LOT of problems. Having to run to the computer and sit there in that chair every single time you want to play online? Well, the serious neck strain from looking down while sitting like that aside, what about the tug the cable is going to have? There's a reason I still use my SP for Advance games despite having a DS, weight strains wrists! (The DS is frickin' HEAVY, not so much a problem as the fact that the weight is off balance so it puts twisting force on your wrists.)
Now ABF, thing is, I know inexperience makes you have doubts. That is a healthy mindset, it SHOULD have to prove itself to you. So, I'll provide the evidence you should need to see that wifi is both something that will be so widespread everyone will have it very soon (well everyone that counts, that county in like Louisianna that JUST got telephone support is irrelevent to the rest of the world, they offer NOTHING to us).
First, details on how it works.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wireless-network.htm
Read that whole bit, and whatever links at the end you need to figure out any detailed parts. It should help you figure out exactly what this technology is capable of.
Now then, with the knowledge that it is VERY powerful, stable, and the latest standards allow for sufficient bandwidth (and also it is technically radiation filling the planet :D, but honestly so is visible light, the important part is that both wavelengths and completely and utterly harmless, well visible light can blind you if you have too much but...), the next question you have is about how wide spread it is. It would seem that broadband level proliferation is sufficient for you, so good news, it's getting there.
Here's one of many lovely hotspot directories.
http://www.wi-fihotspotlist.com/
I checked "Oklahoma" and found plenty, most in OKC and Tulsa mind you but GR type places don't count :D. Most are in b format, could only find one listed as g...
You can also check out some tech news sites, like wired. Now, I must say that a lot of tech magazines have less than skeptical people writing some rather silly reports on stupid things (like cold fusion, a pipe dream that will never be possible, the only way to get it to work is to put in a tremendous amount of energy, and where exactly do you get that? From another power source? The sun works because it has it's sourse of energy to force the fusion, gravity), but their reports on stuff that actually exists regarding their stated purposes are generally spot on.
Here's an article about a wifi detector device... odd, considering I could use a laptop for that purpose :D, but it does a good job it seems.
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,66120,00.html
Point is, after searching around a bit, you should be able to find the evidence you need to discover just how wide spread wi fi networks will be. City-wide networks can use either a VERY powerful broadcasting point, but that has the risk of overpowering local sources, or just putting average power hotspots all across the city, the norm and really the best way to go about it.
I say this because I have experience with being tethered to the wall with a portable. My mother has a laptop made like... I dunno, the MONTH before built in wifi support became a required laptop standard. So it's very powerful and all, can play modern games pretty well, but it lacks a wifi device built in. Now, she has bought both a PCMCIA card for wifi and a USB device, but neither of them work. To be more accurate, when I plug the USB device into my own PC, it works fine, but not on her laptop. From what I can gather, neither the PCMCIA or USB ports provide enough sheer electricity to send a strong, stable, signal. I gather this from other techy repair peoples telling me about similar problems. The laptop just isn't wifi capable... at all really. Plug in one of those adapters and you get a signal that drops randomly even within 2 inches of the source. Now, the wifi router she has DOES work great with a good laptop. I've tested it with good laptops and the connection is unbreakably solid from front yard to back, and it's in the second story.
Point is, her laptop can't make use of this, only guests can, so she has to string a super long ethernet cable all across the house to wherever she wants to use the laptop. She hates it too. It's very annoying. Also, with that setup, you can bet little kids have tripped over the cord enough to break the little plastic bits on BOTH ends, and also the plastic bit inside the ethernet port itself so she has to tape the cord into place on top of everything. Wifi is the ONLY workable solutionl, and she doesn't have it. Honestly I think her best bet is to just back up the files she wants to keep (save files for MY games mostly) and sell it to buy a new one WITH wifi support.
Look, don't get me wrong, on a system that's meant to be in one place, it's no biggy, but TRUST me when I say that the average person DOES want to move around and being tethered for net access on a portable presents a LOT of problems. Having to run to the computer and sit there in that chair every single time you want to play online? Well, the serious neck strain from looking down while sitting like that aside, what about the tug the cable is going to have? There's a reason I still use my SP for Advance games despite having a DS, weight strains wrists! (The DS is frickin' HEAVY, not so much a problem as the fact that the weight is off balance so it puts twisting force on your wrists.)
Now ABF, thing is, I know inexperience makes you have doubts. That is a healthy mindset, it SHOULD have to prove itself to you. So, I'll provide the evidence you should need to see that wifi is both something that will be so widespread everyone will have it very soon (well everyone that counts, that county in like Louisianna that JUST got telephone support is irrelevent to the rest of the world, they offer NOTHING to us).
First, details on how it works.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wireless-network.htm
Read that whole bit, and whatever links at the end you need to figure out any detailed parts. It should help you figure out exactly what this technology is capable of.
Now then, with the knowledge that it is VERY powerful, stable, and the latest standards allow for sufficient bandwidth (and also it is technically radiation filling the planet :D, but honestly so is visible light, the important part is that both wavelengths and completely and utterly harmless, well visible light can blind you if you have too much but...), the next question you have is about how wide spread it is. It would seem that broadband level proliferation is sufficient for you, so good news, it's getting there.
Here's one of many lovely hotspot directories.
http://www.wi-fihotspotlist.com/
I checked "Oklahoma" and found plenty, most in OKC and Tulsa mind you but GR type places don't count :D. Most are in b format, could only find one listed as g...
You can also check out some tech news sites, like wired. Now, I must say that a lot of tech magazines have less than skeptical people writing some rather silly reports on stupid things (like cold fusion, a pipe dream that will never be possible, the only way to get it to work is to put in a tremendous amount of energy, and where exactly do you get that? From another power source? The sun works because it has it's sourse of energy to force the fusion, gravity), but their reports on stuff that actually exists regarding their stated purposes are generally spot on.
Here's an article about a wifi detector device... odd, considering I could use a laptop for that purpose :D, but it does a good job it seems.
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,66120,00.html
Point is, after searching around a bit, you should be able to find the evidence you need to discover just how wide spread wi fi networks will be. City-wide networks can use either a VERY powerful broadcasting point, but that has the risk of overpowering local sources, or just putting average power hotspots all across the city, the norm and really the best way to go about it.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)