I recently acquired a Toshiba Satellite T1910 running windows 3.1, and i was wondering if it were possible to use my cable internet connection with it. It has a PC card slot, and before i purchase any cards, i want to make sure it would work. Thanks in advance.

It would probably work if you can find a 16-bit PCMCIA card, card and socket services software and the correct card driver.

My understanding of Cable Modems is to all intents you are connected to a LAN as far as the O/S is concerned, therefore you would need Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with the TCP/IP 32B update and IE4/Netscape which supports a LAN connection.

Non Windows for Workgroups versions do not have inbuilt Networking and therefore you would need a DOS Browser like Arachne, which is good but limited in support of modern standards.

As to PCMCIA cards you would need a 16bit Ethernet Card, all modern ones are 32bit CardBus.

This is feasible but you really need WfW3.11, but your memory is very minimal, maybe stick to just DOS.

I have a 386DX/8mb machine that I can run on cable but I use Wfw 3.11.

It's also possible on Win 3.10 but I haven't messed with it. A search on this forum should provide you with a solution but I tend to agree with the above...it's much easier with Windows for Workgroups.

16 bit network cards are readily available on ebay.

I didn't look up the specs of your Toshiba. Does it have a floppy drive so you can load Wfw 3.11 upgrade? Is more memory readily available for it?

Skip

away8907,

I attempted to perform the "DOS-Client for Microsoft Networks" upgrade which is supposed to make Win 3.1 networkable, as described here:

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/win31.htm

I never got it working and bought a WFWG upgrade I found in a computer store for $15.00 U.S.

That is a much easier route, and using the AnalogX proxy server on my Win 95 machine that is hooked up to DSL, the WFWG 'puter is hooked into my home network and the Internet.

Maybe you will have better luck setting up the DOS Client.

Good luck

Well guys,

I'm using my old WFWG 3.11 and cable dsl/LAN, but you have to think about it a while. I think it's not as like as you think about it nowadays. So, let me describe some of these disadvantages.

The Ethernetcard you have to have should be only an ISA or PCI card with 10 MBit, not one of theese new 100 MBit cards because when you try to find a driver for your 100 MBit card you will realy get disappointed at all.
Second, you only have ca. 20 KB/s up and downloadrate, independend of your ethernet speed, only because the old harddrives you are having inside are too slow.
Third, Netscape and Opera are uncomfortable browser-suits, only the IE 5.0 for Windows 3.11 is accaptable for the newer internet standards. But IE 5.0 is so unstable, it crashes every 10 minutes and my PC is an AMD K5 133 MHz with 48 MBRam and 64 MHz FSB ATA 1.

So, if you want it nevertheless you should do it, but I think now about my WFWG 3.11 cable Pc that it was only wasted time !

SiyMan nailed it pretty good.

A 10Mbit isa card, slow harddrive and older browsers do make the process pretty clunky.
My 386DX-33 downloaded at ~10Kbs using IE 3.0.3.

That's a vast improvement over an old 14.4 modem but, as he so well pointed out, it's not the best way to get any work done.

My adventures into networking Wfw 3.11, Win3.1 and DOS were more to learn how the process works; not intended for everyday use.

Skip

I was able to set up networking in WFW 3.11 to an xp home machine, I had IE 3.03 installed, and was attempting to "trick" AOheLl into letting me tap into the internet (56k dialup, connects @ 24k), but parental controlls made it impossible. Also, I have 2 different 10/100 PCI network cards that have drivers that support 100Mbps in WFW 3.11
I imaginr if yoy can get more RAM you can do quite well, also browse the above site, it has tweaks to get faster COM port speeds.
As for Hard disk speeds, a new, faster hard disk would solve that, but it is hard to find them that work with older computer's BIOS's. There is also a message board on that site that the webmaster looks at and can answer questions, he is quite an expert at DOS/ 3.x.

Have T2130/32MB/30GB(soft bios) running WfW 3.11 and W98SE on wireless network. I'm limited on speed but for basic browsing, it's not that noticeable compared to dial-up.