One Win95 PC can act as the proxy server to the internet for all the other
PCs.  You don't want a firewall since a proxy server, of this type anyway,
is not a true connection to the Internet so much as a way to share a line
or modem.  I recommend the following developers for an internet connection.

http://www.x-media.cz/main.html
This is their English language page and it is next to useless but it proves
they are alive.  Email them at [log in to unmask]
They are quite good and their English is good.  The product you want is
WinProxy.  I use it to give all my users email access and a modem for web
browsing.  My copy of WinProxy is running on a 486 /sx33 with 8 meg of RAM
and a 150 meg hard disk, plus a 14,400 bps modem.  It dials out-bound on
demand and delivers inbound mail every 15 minutes.  We sometimes have 3 or
4 users browsing through the little 14K modem at the same time.  "No
downloads people, please!"   I am scheduled for my second T-1 installation
(the first one is full with other stuff) and I will tell you how it runs
with that when I get it installed.

Best of all it is very inexpensive for what it does.
tom turak
[log in to unmask]


----------
From:   David Gillett[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Monday, March 16, 1998 2:40 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: [PCBUILD] Network Setup ??

On 15 Mar 98 at 0:52, Errol wrote:

> I manage a medical supply company in Johannesburg - South
> Africa which currently has 6 stand-alone P.C.'s, (all old
> 486 machines).
>
> I want to upgrade all the P.C.'s to 200 MHz Pentium machines
> and install an 8 station  NETWORK.

<snip>

> On the software side, I would like to know what System you
> recommend (Win95 or Win NT or MS BackOffice etc.).
>
> The programs we are currently running are:  WordPerfect v6.1
> and QuattroPro v6.0, dBase 2 and 3,   Ascent (a DOS based
> accounting package) and Netscape v4.0.

  Since you are still running some DOS applications, I recommend that
most of your stations should run Win95.  There is gateway software
available that will also run on Win95, but I'd put it on an NT box
for stability.  The kind of package you're looking for will probably
require a server, either NT or possibly some flavour of Unix.  If it
runs on NT, you may be tempted to put it on your gateway machine, but
unless you also install a firewall, I would not recommend that.

David G