Does anyone know if you can still get BNC network cards? A friend of mine is looking for a cheap way to hook 2 computers up.

You can, but they'll probably cost as much as a proper cat5 card.

Any reason you can't use a pair of cat5 PCI cards and a xover cable?

Total cost £15 depending on cable length.

With BNC's you need terminators and T's which'll cost you more than the cat5 alone.

I have an old 3com etherlink card with all three types of connector on it,
Free if you want it and I may have another at work.
If you get stuck let me know and if you send me a SAE i will post to you.
Steve.

will do thanks for that. I'd use cat5, but I already have loads of the BNC cable and there's the option of extending without a hub.

Mark,
get into this centuary - BNCs are 10 year old technology. Like no one uses them anymore.
Hubs are dirt cheap

AS already mentioned, the cost of T-Pieces, terminators etc would probably cost more than buying a pair of 10/100BaseT cards and a crossover cable.

If you already have the cable then this cost is removed - you can pick 10Base2 cards up for virtually nothing. Then only things to bear in mind are:

10Base2 networks are *slow* compared with their modern 10/100/1000BaseT counterparts

10Base2 networks are susceptible to cable problems - bends, poor connections etc.

It's all horses for courses - if you just want a cheap way to connect 2 PCs for occasional use and you have most of the parts lying around, why splash out more than you need to?

Oh...last one....I believe support for many 10Base2 cards has been removed from WinXP...

10/100 ethernet cards are about £3 each and a cable is £1, how cheap does he want?

How I hate BNC --- too many problems

The cost of connecting two computers with 100BaseT is less than a tenner for 2 cards and a long crossed cable. OK 20 quid if you want to do it with a 5 port hub.




[Edited on 22/1/06 by britishtrident]

I know rj45 is cheap, but if I have to span 30metres and I already have cable/connectors/terminators, I think it makes sense. I do appreciate the comments though, that lack of xp support never dawned on me. Time will tell, I found someone with a few lying around.