[cstuder]

Oh how I hated to set up the network: We've usually gathered around saturday morning, everybody hauling up their gear and waving their parents goodbye. The oldes guy in our group had removed all network cards from the PCs at his office and we spend the next six hours installing the network, hooking up BNC cables, trying to get the IPX to work, executing all kind of arcane rituals in order to get the games to work.

Later on network cards got cheaper so we had our cards pre-installed. Still the expensive 3com cards didn't mix well with the cheapest Planet ones. (We had to keep the cheap cards on one side of the BNC part and the the others on the other side...)

Ethernet was a godsend.

A couple of years later Laptops made spontaneous LAN parties possible. I wouldn't wanna go back.