How do I share cable among two computers?

[Pundit]

It's for my gf's dad, who deleted 4 hours of her work last week. One is a WinXP box and the other is a 98SE (probably a Pentium 100 - dunno if there's PCI though, probably is). They are adjacent to each other. What is the least expensive hardware that I need to split the cable between them? Currently, the cable w/modem runs through the WinXP machine. I would appreciate any help you can give me

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Cheapest would probably be to buy a 10$ NIC and install it into the WinXP machine. connect the win98 machine to the winxp machine and use the winXP machine as a server. The problem is that the WinXP machine would always have to be on to access the internet.

I suggest you buy a decent "broadband gateway" which is actually a switch, router, and firewall in one unit. Then plug each comp into the gateway and you're good to go

-Ice

PS: FAQ U

 

[DN]

I'll ditto on that suggestion of a broadband router.. It might be a bit more expensive, but it's hassle-free..

 

[Studdyman]

With just the info you gave, you can do it a couple of ways.

If your not using them at the same time then do it the old way, disconnect one and plug the other in......yeah right...right.

You can put a proxy up....like winproxy, proxyserver, wingate, sybex, etc. You will need two nic cards in one machine.
Another way is to buy a router, send the cable into WAN connection of the router, and you machines into the LAN connection of the router. The router will assign IPs for your LAN and the ISP will assign a IP (prob dynamic) to your router. There are a couple real nice routers out there that are cheap. LINKSYS is one. Check out www.speedguide.net.

 

[Pundit]

<< Cheapest would probably be to buy a 10$ NIC and install it into the WinXP machine. connect the win98 machine to the winxp machine and use the winXP machine as a server. The problem is that the WinXP machine would always have to be on to access the internet. >>


Well, the XP machine actually is on all the time, so this could be done.



<< I suggest you buy a decent "broadband gateway" which is actually a switch, router, and firewall in one unit. Then plug each comp into the gateway and you're good to go >>


So, how much do these usually go for?

And, thank you for the help so far.

 

[DoOLiE11]

they can run anywhere from 50 -100

but you should check out the hotdeals forum

there is a deal on a router in there for 29 bucks

 

[Nate420]

I just picked up a Netgear 4 port router a few days ago. I was in a big hurry to get a router, so I didn't want to wait on order processing/shipping from an online retailer, so I just grabed it from a local Best Buy for $99. Newegg has some nice Linksys and Dlink routers for ~$75 + ~$10 for shipping=about 85-90 bucks. I was willing to spend an extra ten bucks to avoid the wait. The Netgear I got is the RP114. I like it, automatic config is nice, and there are plenty of advanced freatures to keep the geeks happy too