Boring Network Question

[Anakim]

The icon is the closet thing to a yawn.

In the nano seconds when I'm not dreaming of the coolest way to die and who I could take with me (Jumping from a decent height and aiming for someone I vehemently dislike is probably the favoured method this morning) I sometimes use a computer.

I've recently been loaned - on a fairly permie basis - a new PC (PIII 600Mhz, 256 Mb, Win 2000) which is network ready. Now being a complete spoon I know nuffink about Network stuff, but would like to link this machine to my crabby Pentium 200Mhz, 32Mb Win95 machine. Why? Well the old cronky thing has a 17Gb hard disk and I've loads of stuff I'd like to access from the new one without copying it over.

Any hints, or even detailed info, on what I should be looking for would be appreciated. Please don't say a serial connection and PC Anywhere/Laplink.

Cheers

[jdavison]

all you need is a hub and a couple nic cards. Then you can just share the folders you want.

[Arbiter]

Some cable might help as well ;-)

[Anakim]

Cheers.

Any advice on hubs? Is it base10 or something like that?

Also it doesn't sound as though it'll take too long to setup. Can I feasibly make this sound very convoluted so as to avoid the decorating?

[jdavison]

a 10baseT network should be just fine for what you are doing. So you would need a 10baseT hub. The smallest one I can think of is 5 ports. 2 nic cards also 10baseT and 2 cat 5 twisted pair cables. all you have to do is install the cards, give them different IPs and plug them into the hub with the cables. You may also find a starter set with everything you need also.

[parksie]

You can also go for the insanely cheap option of 10Base2 (often dubbed Cheapernet). All you need is a cable, two T-Pieces, and two terminators. You can get the lot for about:

Two PCI 10/100 cards: £30
     Two terminators: £2
        Two T-Pieces: £2
         5m of cable: £6
--------------------------
               Total: £40

...not too pricey - for this option you don't need a hub. However, here's the catch: it's slower than using 10BaseT. Although, I use it at home to connect 2 PCs and a NetportExpress and it's fine speed-wise.

[Anakim]

Gratis very much to yawl.

I think you've thrown me a 'get out of decorating free' card which I shall be playing this w/end.