Connecting Two Computers

[FlameX 0]

Hey Trapsters .. long time i have been here I have a doubt . i wanna connect 2 computers with a help of wire without using any other devices like HUB , SWITCH etc . so hows it possible to connect two computers with a help of wire . - do i need to have same OS in both the computers . - and wat kind of wire should i use CAT5 , RJ 45 which one ?? .

[Evolix 1]

Why not make a home network instead? Then you can connect two computers together, on the same network. All you need to do is make the network and make sure both computers have the same workgroup name.

[travstatesmen 0]

This is possible. I remember from my early networking days, we used to make a "crossover cable" by swapping over a couple of wires before crimping the RJ45 plugs on, and this allowed for two computers to be tethered without the need for a hub or router. Have a look at this wikipedia entry for how to make one yourself, or you can buy a crossover adapter, which is a short length of CAT5 with one male and one female RJ45 on the ends, and the crossover is done on this, so you can just add the crossover adapter to any normal CAT5/CAT6 cable to turn it into a crossover cable. Have a look at these nifty small loopback adaptors from ThinkGeek that don't use any length of CAT5 cable, they're just a male and female RJ45 end in a single unit. You can even keep one on your keychain! Nifty!

 

For a really secure home network, you could possibly put two PCI network cards into each computer and run these crossover cables between them all in a series, forming a loop, which is called "daisy-chaining". The computer on the left would plug in to the first network card, then the second network card would be plugged into the computer on the right, and so on right around the loop. Then you could use routing to forward the Ethernet packets between the two network cards, and could even implement such cool security features as NAT and a firewall between each network card, making each crossover cable be its own subnet. Sorry, I'm getting a little carried away here, but it is a use for crossover cables, and a way to have multiple computers in a network without a hub or router device. Normally a crossover cable will only connect two computers with a single network card in each computer.

 

This has brought back some memories, I tell you! It reminded me of when I used to sit at my old workshop desk making null-modem cables (also called Fast Link cables, FastLynx cables, or LapLink cables), and connecting two computers together with them, plugging into the parallel ports (the big DB25 plug where the old-style printers used to plug in). Then we would use a piece of software called "FastLynx" to transfer data between the two computers over the null-modem cable. This was before Windows 95 came out. FastLynx couldn't handle the long filenames natively, and you had to do something extra to resolve the LFN data.

Edited October 18, 2008 by travstatesmen (see edit history)

[euverve 0]

The solution for that is cross over cabling.

View more info here:

http://
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/network/net2pc/intro.htm

You you may google "cross over cabling"