An interesting trigger for memories from my early career. People who started work in the late nineties will not remember a time when it was extremely difficult

An interesting trigger for memories from my early career. People who started work in the late nineties will not remember a time when it was extremely difficult to share files and data between PCs. We had things like laplink, where you could connect two PCs with a parallel cable, but no external drives or usb sticks, and floppy disks were too small. Connecting to a Netware network was what you did to share files and some applications like dBase, Paradox, and later Access were able to use network file-shared databases. Also, security was pretty lax (no firewalls or network-spread viruses), and the system administrator probably worked in the office and could create an account for you without any paperwork. I ran my own Netware network but struggled to setup and configure, so my buddy always helped. Network cards were also a bit ropey and difficult to configure (before Win95), so on Windows you had to work hard to get your card to work across IPX/SPX and NetBEUI. It is also worth remembering that in the early nineties, TCP/IP wasn't in small office networks - The Internet was for universities and the like, and prior to Win95 on Windows you had to run Trumpet Winsock to get a TCP/IP stack. I remember using novell networking less and less once Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was released (probably around 1993) because you could easily 'folder share' between PCs and once NT came along it was all over. NT 3.1 AS had a full tcp stack and ran SQL Server 4.21, and it was quickly followed by Win95 and NT 3.51. From 1995 file/print services for small offices were taken care of by Windows and 'plug and play' network cards that worked first-time.