It’s many years back, and this newbie IT pilot fish is tasked with setting up a new top-of-the-line 386 PC — the first PC he’s ever touched.

“Taking it out of the box and connecting almost all the wires was easy enough,” says fish. “All that was left was connecting it to the network and downloading some stuff.

“PCs being new in the area, first I had to find a network wall jack. That took some hunting and moving of boxes but eventually it came in sight. I plugged in that end of the cable.”

That brings fish to the other end of the wire — and now he’s puzzled. The modem and network jacks on the back of the PC look identical. But he carefully squints at the markings, and when he pushes the connector into the network jack, it clicks into place.

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