So how fast is the direct cable connection? I'm willing to be that any Ethernet setup is going to be far faster.

The second key advantage to FTP is that you can use it across the room or across the entire planet. IP gives you routing. Direct cable connections do not.

When I want to copy files between machines in the same room I might tolerate sneakernet. But for real file transfer, between different types of machines or machines located anywhere within the reach of a network, FTP is what I use. Null modem and laplink are very limited in comparison.

r.cade wrote:

Least hassle is not to use SMB. 😀

Simple TCP/IP (even mTCP in DOS) and FTP server running on a PC in your network will work fine.

Strangely though, in every-single-machine running 9x that I've tried to transfer files via network just hangs after a while.
"A while" is after some seconds on some machines or 1-2 minutes in others. Having the same exact PC with the PCI cards in the same slots, with NT based OS (eg win2000), it works wonders.
Go figure...