Via PM Ali went with my hunch that BP64 wants the Broadcom wl driver.I can't get Bionicpup64 to work on my system because the wifi card won't work. It works with the b43 pci module on 32b.
In the process the ssb, bcma, b43, b44 & brcmsmac modules were blacklisted:03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
the "wl_apsta.o" firmware from this pkg extracted to /lib/firmware.
After a quick reboot -- "Houston, we have an interface!"