Quick update. I'll answer all questions this morning, but right ATM, I think my best chance of moving forward in this matter is to replace the ISA NIC. I can always go back to it, when I get the basics working. I searched on ebay for: 3Com 3C905B-TX, and found plenty of cards. However, these cards seem to come in 2 flavours -

On the right edge of some cards, you can see a little white connector. Some of these cards for sale even have a cable attached to this white connector. On other cards, that white connector has been removed from the PCB. Which model is best? One seller has a pile of "no white connector" type cards, and if the absence of a white connector is unimportant, I might get a couple of these. Thanks a lot for the help guys!

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_nkw=3Com+3C905 … 6.c0.m270.l1313 (ebay listing for 3Com 3C905B-TX)

The white connector is a WOL (wake-on-lan) connector. It can be used to wake up your computer remotely by sending a specially formatted 'message' to the target computer.

Your motherboard needs to have the WOL socket to use this feature.

Newer motherboards don't need this WOL socket, as they supported WOL over PCI (the signal is sent through the PCI slot directly without any special cable).

If you don't need these feature, it doesn't matter whether this socket is available or not.

There are some other 3c905 cards which is equipped with blank socket such as this:

The blank socket is for the PXE ROM, usually used in conjunction with the WOL socket in thin clients. The PC is powered on by the server with WOL, then the PXE ROM connects to the server and downloads the OS. By this method, the harddrive is not required to be present in the PC as the PC 'pulls' the OS from the server.

Again, if you don't need these feature, don't bother with it. It is a nice additional feature though in case you need these feature to power up your server in the attic from your sofa 😀

Thanks a lot! I've just ordered a bunch of very cheap 3Com 3C905B-TX cards, without the WOL socket.

I've been wondering about those "BIOS chip sockets" for a while now...would it be possible to place a motherboard BIOS chip into the socket on the NIC and then flash a motherboard BIOS file onto it?

Very quick update: thanks very much for all the advice so far, I am going to "start over" (with the basics) with the much better PCI NICs that have been despatched to me. As soon as they arrive, I'll get this all up and running and working. I want to

* Test the sftp utility first - that one looks very promising. I like the idea behind this.
* Set up a 2 machine W98 configuration. That could be easier than a W98 / W-XP configuration.
* Test comms between a W98 box and a W-XP box.

Then, when all of this works, I'll go back to the ISA NIC with a certain degree of confidence. If it mysteriously fails to do anything at all, well it could be a hardware fault with the card. I hope it's OK with you helpful people, but I'll defer answering those questions from yesterday until I am confident that I can get the basics working with the PCI NICs first. Thanks.

Solved! I just received the PCI 3Com 3C905B-TX NICs. I plugged one in to the W98 box, and I got it working immediately! I did this:

* Ensured that the router is already doing DHCP.
* Added File and Print sharing to the W98 box.
* Made sure that my W98 log in User Name is the same User Name that I use on my WXP box.
* Made sure that my WXP workgroup name is the same as the workgroup name on my W98 box.
* Set up a "test" shared folder on my W98 box.
* Ensured that my WXP firewall allowed an exception, which was to allow File and Print sharing.

Now, both WXP and W98 machines can "see" each other. On my WXP box, I can navigate to the shared folder on the W98 box. Questions please people:

1) Edit: now solved. When I use the WXP box to navigate to the shared folder on the W98 box, I cannot edit any file that I see inside this shared folder. I can only read it. I'm sure this is really easy to solve, and I will investigate this further...

2) On my W98 box, I cannot see anything on the WXP box, because when I try to look at the WXP box from the W98 box, I am shown an "Enter Network Password" pop up box. It says: You must supply a password to make this connection. It mentions: \\MyMachine\IPC$. I don't know what IPC$ is. Also, when I navigate from the WXP box to the W98 box, I am not asked for any password.

3) I have no firewall on the W98 box, and I am also using TCP/IP. Is this dangerous? I haven't set up internet access yet, on the W98 box. Perhaps that is just as well?! Can a hacker gain access to my WXP box, via the unsecured W98 - through the router? (They would only find hundreds of crusty old hardware drivers!)

Thanks a lot for any advice!

I think in the Sharing tab for the folder in Windows 98, there's a setting to toggle whether or not it is Read Only.

To access the XP box from your Win98 box, try enabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP in XP. It's one of the settings in the TCP/IP properties for the Network connection. (By default, it checks with the DHCP on the router in some funny way that might not be working properly.)

Alternatively, one of the first Google hits for <ipc networking> is http://www.homenethelp.com/web/howto/win2k-ipc-error.asp , which is of course about Windows 2000, but the idea might still apply.

Thanks a lot. Solving question 1 was easy. I can now move files across, from my WXP machine to my W98 machine. That's the most important thing for me. To move old drivers across like that. Actually, I'm happy with that. For now, I'll probably skip the idea of getting the W98 box to "talk to" the WXP box. The only outstanding issue I now have is security. Thanks.

BTW, I'm fairly certain that old ISA NIC from my o.p. is faulty. I mean, I tried for hours and hours to get it to work, and I got no joy from it. OTOH, I plugged in the 3COM PCI NIC, and I had it working in about 5 minutes.

hi

one other idea for you to try out is to
install a DOS packet driver then you
can also copy over files when in DOS
mode should you use DOS mode that
is.

personally i use mTCP ftp server which
so happens to be a new development
but you could use the oldskool PCTCP
should you locate it somewhere.

cya

mtcp is here:
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/

retro games 100 wrote:

3) I have no firewall on the W98 box, and I am also using TCP/IP. Is this dangerous? I haven't set up internet access yet, on the W98 box. Perhaps that is just as well?! Can a hacker gain access to my WXP box, via the unsecured W98 - through the router? (They would only find hundreds of crusty old hardware drivers!)

It is okay. Your router is mostly a NAT (Network Address Translation) router -- in simple terms, it would redirect requests from a large number of local IP into one public IP.

Most ADSL routers do these.

If anyone types your IP at the router, they will "arrive" at the router first, as the router is the gateway between your local network and the world. If you haven't set up the port forwarding, then your computers inside the LAN is safe.

Make sure you have set the router's admin page so it only be accessible to local networks, protects them from outside world to prevent someone accessing the router's admin page and messing with it (or even redirecting some ports to your PCs so they can hack it 😁)

For upstream connections (the connections from your computer to the Web), it is unprotected. The one which is responsible in controlling this connections is the firewall on your local computer. As soon as you don't run softwares that you don't trust, it will be safe 😁

ps. for cable internets, if you directly connected the modem to the PC, you will mostly expose the ports on your PC as cable modems typically don't have routing capability. If your cable modem is connected to the router, it will be safe 😁

admin admin 🤣

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

admin admin 🤣

In my case, it is admin password 🤣

sklawz wrote:

one other idea for you to try out is to install a DOS packet driver then you can also copy over files when in DOS

Yes, that's a good idea, I would really like to get DOS file transfer working. This would make the communication between 2 machines very flexible. I often work with DOS. 😀

@MatthewBrian, thanks a lot for the important security advice! 😀

@Mau1wurf1977 + MatthewBrian, my NIC test machine User Name is User password, and the password is password. Don't put me in charge of security. 😉

@All, thanks a lot for all of the advice. BTW, those 3COM NICs are great. So easy to set up. The driver is on the W98SE CD-ROM, and gets automatically installed.

MatthewBrian wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

admin admin 🤣

In my case, it is admin password 🤣

Lol...

Does this password reset every time you unplug the router from the power outlet?
Does it "loose it's changed settings"?

there's newer, better drivers for those NICs from 3com's site btw

Tetrium wrote:

Does this password reset every time you unplug the router from the power outlet?
Does it "loose it's changed settings"?

No.
I've never seen a router forgets the settings once it is unplugged, as they saved it on a flash memory.

if they're power cycled in rapid succession, it could loose the settings from NVRAM

Tetrium wrote:

Does this password reset every time you unplug the router from the power outlet?
Does it "loose it's changed settings"?

No, but what you can do is look at the back for the reset button. Ususally a small hole in which you stick in something thin for 10 seconds.

It will wipe the ADSL ISP settings as well though. So it's not really useful apart from causing a bit of grief...