One clarification - you have to use a crossover ethernet cable to directly connect the PCs.
Standard ethernet cable if connecting both to a hub or switch
Quite right, sorry
Would add though that most new ethernet
switches are auto-MDIX which means they will auto configure their port(s) regardless of what ethernet cable you stick in there.
I also don't think anybody sells ethernet
hubs anymore - do they?
Whatever happened to good ole laplink? I spent many happy hours (or days) transferring data between PCs with that.
As an aside, a great interview question for a "real programmer" would have been: how does Laplink auto-install itself to the remote end? The answer is that they wrote the code stub (which was received on the remote end using the MODE=COM or some such console-com port redirection command) in assembler (of course) using opcodes which were all printable characters...