I have 2 PCs. a home one and a laptop. Both are running win95 The laptop has a 56k modem. is it possible to network the 2 together so i can access the internet from the home PC through the modem in the laptop?? both have network cards, or would direct cable connection work? thanks. tom

Should be no problem to network them but you probably need to get a mini hub. You will also need a proxy server software. Try a product from Wingate software. Hope this gets you started. This is a fairly common question these days. Go to www.pcmag.com anf look through there back issues and they have articles onhow to do it.

You can do it with two network cards and a crossover cable to avoid using the hub, but if you want to add other PC's to the network, you will need a bub with straight through cables. As far a a proxy server to use, try analogx proxy, http://www.analogx.com. It's the only free proxy server that I know of, and is extremely easy to configure and use.

Win98 second edition has an added feature called Internet Connection Sharing where your networked computers can share a modem. You might want to try that as the proxy server software can be a bit expensive.

I recently networked 2 PCs at home using Homelink Linksys. It comes with 2 network cards, software, and phone cable for $99.95. It is very simple to hook up, all you do is install the network cards, daisy chain the phone cables, and install the software. I made one of the computers a Server and the other a client. They both can use the Internet through one modem at the same time. I can also share files, the printer, and scanner. It's great and I highly recommend it.

A Program called wingate is also another way to use them together www.wingate.net

you have all of the hardware you need to start your internet sharing needs--if you are only using 56k access, not dsl or cable. and they're right, all you need now is the proxy server. and as to your question about the direct cable, yes you can use what is called a "crossover" cable, which does not need a hub. this only works for two computers. i do not know if you have setup your network, but you will have to go to network properties (in control panel) and give your network cards an IP address, make your laptop's address be 192.168.0.1 with its subnet mask as 255.255.255.0 and your home pc's IP as 192.168.0.2 and the subnet mask the same. the subnet masks must be the same otherwise your computers will not find each other on the network. and then the proxy server will do the rest!