Newbie: simplest way to connect several pcs in home

[moham14]

I want to connect several pcs (up to 5) to a central pc in a room. The
connection will be used for data transfer in a low rate.
The central pc sends and recieves from each surrounding pcs, only one
byte, 30 times per a second. Considering 5 pcs the rate will be 1.2
kbps.

Can anyone tell me what is the simplest way to do this?












2820794 001

 

[altecsole]

The easiest/cheapest way would be to put a network card in each machine
and then buy a hub/switch to connect them all together.

You could also buy wireless network cards and a wireless access point,
but this will be much more expensive.

 

[Kurt]

Agreed. The simplest way is the tried and true way that we know works. There
are other ways, but considering that you can buy network cards on eBay (or
even from etailers) for about $5 bucks US, and an 8 port switch will run you
$30 - $50, you could set the whole thing up for under $100. It would be not
only cheap and reliable, but would also have virtually limitless
scalability. Your file transfers would be simple to script and you can
immediately take advantatge of commonly accessible files through Windows
built-in networking tools like "mapped drives" and the network browser
(network neighborhood, my network places).

....kurt