Walking the wireless path

I set the goal for myself of getting the wireless card working on my Thinkpad 600. Yes, it's an antique, but that's part of the charm. No native support seems to be available for my Buffalo G54 card, so I'm going the ndiswrapper route. (I'm no Free Software zealot - I'm just a cheap bastard.) Thus far, I've managed to get the ndiswrapper software to claim that it has installed the driver - but the hardware is not yet recognized. So now I'm researching how to get the card recognized. (Running Slackware 12.0) The wireless card is a Buffalo G54 AirStation model WLI2-CB-G54L. I realize that there are much better choices out there, but this is the one I already have on hand, and this is as much a learning challenge as anything else. Off to the wikis and the FAQS.