Network cards and Win98SE

[Charles]

Thanks for the tips. The reason I’m not using Ethernet cable is because the 
Vintage Computer Room (where this PC resides) is on the 2nd floor around a 
couple of corners, and my DSL modem/router and unfiltered phone line are in 
the 1st floor study. Would take a long run and some drilling, or duct taping 
it to the banister and hoping the dog and cats don’t eat it ;)

However, after finally giving up on the wireless cards... I realized that I 
had a simple Linksys LNE100TX Ethernet card in the PC junk pile. I installed 
that (it was recognized by 98SE and the drivers worked first time too), then 
brought my laptop upstairs and set it up as a bridge. That works, but is 
clumsy and requires another computer.

My next idea was to find a wireless device to connect to the Ethernet card. 
I found out about WLAN, bridging, and most importantly, that many models of 
router can be reflashed with dd-wrt software, and act as the bridge I 
needed! Also in the closet was a Linksys E1200 router, which is one of the 
models supported by dd-wrt. So I flashed it and hooked it up.

After a bit of struggle (incomplete directions but I managed to fill in the 
missing pieces) I now have wireless network and Internet access on the old 
machine :)
Incidentally, PUTR now works perfectly since I’m running 98SE/DOS.