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.
