Setting up a Two-Computer System

2/96, from Bill Bentsen: I am trying to figure the best way to connect two PCs in the same office. I want to have one PC handle faxing, corrections to documents, printing, etc., and have the other PC used just for transcription; however, the fax/print PC must have access to the files of the other PC while both of them are running, i.e., one would have to be like a server and the other like a slave, but both would have to be able to access the drives of the other. Do any of you have a similar setup running?

From Thomas Foulks: Start with a pair of good 16-bit Ethernet cards (16-bit so you'll have a full range of IRQs to avoid conflicts with the serial ports your modems will use), and appropriate cable for them. Then, if your PCs are up to it, Win95 is an absolutely ideal solution (there's five machines on my SOHO system).

If the PCs are not Win95-capable, then look to LANtastic or Windows for Workgroups 3.11. With LANtastic, you can have a DOS level LAN outside of Windows; with W4Wgrps, the LAN functions only with Windows loaded. With any of the three above, you can have access to all drives/partitions on either machine from either machine. About the only thing you can't do is open the same output file simultaneously from the two machines (for what should be obvious reasons). Sharing of application software across the LAN will vary from product-to-product; licensing, etc.

Plan on one machine being your print server, handling all print jobs from both machines. Sharing the faxmodem, if you have that in mind, becomes considerably more tricky. There are software packages on the market which claim to do so; in reviews, I've not seen any that were reliable without the user jumping through a lot of hoops. Your "fax server" will be able to access files from either machine, but the machine without the fax will not be able to send/receive through the fax port.

I've not been pricing stuff like this lately, but least expensive setup is likely LANtastic's starter kit -- should be available around $200 ( be available around $200 (including Ethernet cards/cable), most PC shops. The documentation tends to tell you more than you really need to know for such a small system, but is well-written.

Most effective setup, though, is the Win95 solution. I've been running it since starting with the beta program last June, and its LAN capabilities are what I like best about it. Although I have three power-user machines on my system, two others are an AMD386-40 and an i386DX-33, both running Win95 -- they're slow for keyboard work, but ideal as file servers.