legacy equipment, needs networked

N

nameless_centurian

Gawd
Joined
Apr 4, 2003
Messages
836
hey, all.

i've got an old 486 laptop that i want to put zipslack on. no biggie, right?

i want it to get on the internet.

here's the problem. the laptop has not ethernet card. it has no 802.11 card...it has a 14.4 pcmcia 2.0 modem (i don't have a dial-up account).... we are talking old equipment, here.

what i want to know is this:

is it possible to connect the laptop to my winxp machine at home over the serial db9 port and run ppp to give the machine an IP address?

like this:

[laptop serial port].....ppp......[winxp]...ethernet...[gateway].....internet

is there some free (legal) routing/nat software on the internet that will run on winxp and can manage the serial interface on the winxp computer, as well as provide it with an address and make it use ppp?

if so, is it possible to let it run off a cd once booted into windows so i can connect to a friend's computer and then the internet?

thanks.
 
I forget the name of the cable, but I think two machines can be semi networked with a special parallel cable.
 
If it has this: 14.4 pcmcia 2.0 modem, then it could get these, 10/100 pcmcia or 802.11b/g pcmcia, =easier.
 
you'd think i could get a pcmcia card to fit in the slot, but you'd be wrong!

sorry to not mention this earlier, but i already tried that. i have an 802.11b pcmcia card laying here and it does not fit! go figure.

as far as the special cable goes, it's just an ordinary cable of any sort that will cross the tx/rx pins over. i know, i have one. this isn't the problem.

the problem is i want to run the internet protocol over the serial (db9) interface. to further define the problem, how can i assign an ip address to the serial interface? it does not run a normal encapsulation in zmodem or what have you. so i asked if it is possible to run ppp directly on the interface and assign an ip address?
 
Wish 802.11 cards would work in old laptops (I have a p120 myself)
16bit pcmcia VS. 32bit pcmcia.

Best thing to do is go grab a 16bit pcmcia nic off ebay. 16bit cards don't have gold pins on outside edge of the card. I didn't have much luck with slackware's pcmcia disk; but I got a OS on mine using barts boot disk.
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/
 
I am confused :confused:

I have a very old canon 486 notebook with 8Mb of ram, an upgraded 800Mb hdd that I put in it, and it is running freebsd, and I can put my brand new truemobile card in it, as well as my 3com 10 meg lan card, and my compaq 10/100 pc card....

did they switch over to 32bit pcmcia bus halfway through production or what? the laptop I have is only a 66Mhz processor...so it _has_ to be ghetto...
 
I have one. Microsoft made an 802.11b pcmcia card that was 16 bit. I got it from CompUSA:
Model MN-520. Here's Microsoft's page for it, and you can get it from Amazon.
Here's what I finally figured out...the cardbus cards always (afaik) have a brass-colored section on top with "teeth", near the part of the card that goes in the slot, that will keep it from going into a 16-bit slot. I couldn't believe someone made a 16-bit 802.11b card, but M$ did! And it was less than $20!
 
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Man, I looked and looked, but I didn't find one...if you do PLEASE let me know. I'm using the laptop in my observatory, to give me a wireless link back to the house. If I can get a USB card, I can also use it for the camera I use on the telescope.
 
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