Can I Network Two PCs Without Network Cards?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #76, I look at the possibilities and difficulties in trying to
set up a network without networking equipment.

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Networking without network cards

Well, yes. There are a couple of solutions out there.

I believe if you have a printer port, the old Laplink software from
Traveling software would actually provide you with a cable that can be used to
connect the two computers. There may also be USB based solutions out there.

But here’s why I sound less than enthused about that answer. Those are old
solutions. The cable printer absolutely is old! I’ve got a 15 year old printer
cable like that – that I haven’t used in 15 years; and I certainly don’t have
the software for it anymore. They’ve basically been replaced by networking
hardware.

So you’re not going to find a lot of current software. You’re not going to
find a lot of current support. You’re not going to find a lot of help making
that work.

It’s not free

And… you’re going to have to spend some money. You’re going to spend some
money on, at least, the cable and quite possibly the software to go with
it.

If you’re gonna spend money anyway… get a couple of cheap network cards.
They don’t have to be expensive. I know that a local secondhand store here, a
secondhand computer store, will sell them for like ten or fifteen bucks apiece;
especially for these older XP machines.

You don’t need anything late and breaking, and new and fast. An old 10 MB
per second network card will do what you need just fine, and it can be just as
cheap as some of these other solutions.

Save yourself some headache

Then, you can certainly look into solutions that use network cards connected
back to back to network your two computers together.

There are solutions. They’re not simple solutions… which leads me to my
next point. And that is that, you know? If you’re in for a couple of network
cards? It will make your life a whole lot simpler if you also get yourself an
inexpensive router. It doesn’t have to be high-end. It doesn’t have to be
wireless, just a cheap four-port router will do just fine.

And again, same place, secondhand store. I’ll bet they’ve got those too.
Probably for about the same price.

With those three things: your two network cards, the cables to connect them
to the router, you can actually set up a working network. In fact, there’s a
really good chance that simply having Windows XP install everything by default
without really having to think about it too much will get you a working
network.

That’s my stronger recommendation. Go the path of things that were designed
to do what it is you’re trying to do.

The other solutions (back to back network cables, using printer ports, or
USB ports, or COM ports) they weren’t designed for that. Those are kind of
reverse hacks to make these kinds of things work. You’re not going to find a
lot of information or help to make them work.

On the other hand, networking exists today: routers, Ethernet cards,
Ethernet set up is something we do every day – on almost all current computers.
If you were to go that route, I believe, you’ll be much more successful in the
long run and you’ll end up spending about the same amount of money.

(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)