Let me see if I can help.

> OK - I think I'm starting to get some grip on these things.
> 
> Bought the cheapest Wireless Base Station I could locate (Addtron
> AWS-110 / $ 99.00 at Fry's). Updated firmware & software and apparently
> does 64 & 128 bit WEP - so far so good.
> 
> Bought some used Wavelan IEEE - Silver - Updated firmware (obtained
> Windows & Mac software from www.wavelan) - apparently these cards are 64
> bit WEP but uncertain if the upgrade didn't enable the full 128 bits -
> perhaps not.

Silver are 64bit, 128bit are the gold (gold is what I have).

> Have a Macintosh Cube with an Airport card - updated to Airport 2.01
> which supposedly takes it from 40 bit to 128 WEP.
> 
> So far so good...
> 
> If I set it to an open system, Windows & linux connect easily, get DHCP,
> connect on the lan, surf the net. Macintosh (whether OSX or OS9) gets
> DHCP, surfs the net but AppleTalk isn't routed - Addtron is apparently
> deaf to that protocol. I heard much the same was true of the Linksys
> wireless base stations and clearly I can pony up the full $300 for the
> Apple Base Station if routing AppleTalk packets becomes important - ugh.
> OK, I can live with that but Macintosh cannot print to lpr printer -
> that's a problem.
> 
> If I set 64 bit encryption on Addtron Base station, I can attach in
> linux and in Windows but not Macintosh. Macintosh doesn't seem to like
> 64 bit encryption and I haven't been able to make it work at all. Seems
> the Addtron adds encryption keys only in hex - no big deal according to
> Apple's web site, just add '$' to front of string to input hexadecimal
> 'passwords' (encryption keys) but it still no workee.

Problem.  The passwords are most likely not going through the same hash, so the
key that is coming out is not the same.  Also since you don't seem to know what
the key length is coming from airport then I assume this is where the problem
is.  Make sure that the airport is using a 64-bit key and that it is the same
key that all the other cards and the base station are using, not the password,
but the actual key.

> Anyone got any experience making disparate protocols like these working
> on cheapo cheapo hardware?
> 
> I was playing with one of my clients setups - has original Apple Base
> Station which apparently - even with Airport 2.01 upgrade, still only
> works 40 bits of encryption - but I am not certain on this...it let's
> you pretty much enter a free form password (encryption key I suppose)
> but the Orinoco and other wireless cards I have seen are fixated on key
> lengths... IIRC 5 & 13 in string form for 64 & 128 respectively, and 10
> & 26 in hex.
> 
> All bones tossed my way will be appreciated.