IBM's responses

So far, I have received no official confirmation of this from IBM. As seen in their FCC filing, IBM have made a design decision to prevent certain cards from working. In conversation with IBM support staff, I have so far been told the following:

• "IBM does not support non-IBM parts" - true, but missing the point. In this case, IBM has deliberately made non-IBM parts incompatible.
• "The wireless expansion connector is proprietary" - untrue. This IBM page clearly lists it as a Mini-PCI connector. The PCI SIG (who define PCI specifications) say the following about Mini PCI:

  "The Mini PCI specification defines an alternate implementation for small form factor PCI cards referred to in this specification as a Mini PCI card. This specification uses a qualified subset of the same signal protocol, electrical definitions, and configuration definitions as the Conventional PCI Specification. Where this specification does not explicitly define PCI characteristics, the Conventional PCI specification governs."

  (from http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/conventional/mini_pci)

  Mini PCI is standardised by the same group that standardise PCI. Devices that conform to the Mini PCI specification should work with each other.

• "The hardware does not deliberately prevent devices from working" - untrue. The list of PCI IDs has been taken directly out of the BIOS. The probability of finding that set of numbers in a file the length of the BIOS is approximately 2,000,000,000,000,000 to one against. Even more tellingly, with the exception of the Lucent chipset ID, the IDs are all clustered in a section of the file 36 bytes long. The probability of finding this by chance is sufficiently close to 0 to be entirely discountable.
• This morning I contacted technical support again. This time I got the following response:

  After speaking with a specialist I can confirm that only IBM wireless cards willwork on an X40 machine.

  This prevents the customer to insert non-IBM cards that could adversely damage the machine and have it fixed at IBM costs.

  This is the first confirmation I've had from IBM that the list exists. The excuse is, however, not obviously true. There is no restriction on inserting possible faulty devices into any other expansion slot.