Networking two PCs...why so hard?

I think we all assumed that you had broadband, or at least some kind of constant connection, because networking on dial-up is kinda....difficult.

Although I guess if you used a serial cable, or something like that?

With some routers you can just plug in a windows machine and it'll work. But the one we had at my old work, you had to run an install CD to configure some settings or it wouldn't work.