My computer did something very mac-like today

I have this old powermac G4, with no airport card. I don't have a network cable long enough to reach my router. So, what I did is I just used a shorter network cable to connect the mac to my pc with wi-fi. I always thought this required a special "crossover-cable". However, to my surprise, here I am, connected to the internet on my powermac. Is this some sort of mac feature, or am I misled as to the purpose of a crossover-cable?

Newer network cards can use both types of cable I believe.

Aptmunich said:

Newer network cards can use both types of cable I believe.

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Older ones, too.
By connecting the Mac to PC with a cross-over cable, the Mac latched on to the Internet Connect Sharing feature of the PC. That feature has been around since at least Windows 98. Although how this happened automatically, I do not know. Normally, ICS is not enabled by default.

Kar98 said:

Older ones, too.
By connecting the Mac to PC with a cross-over cable,

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I don't think he used a cross-over cable, that's what makes it really weird

RChickenMan said:

So, what I did is I just used a shorter network cable to connect the mac to my pc with wi-fi. I always thought this required a special "crossover-cable".

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No, I did NOT use a cross-over cable, which is what made me curious.

eon. said:

I don't think he used a cross-over cable, that's what makes it really weird

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Good point. Yep, that's weird alright.

Kar98 said:

Good point. Yep, that's weird alright.

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I like my word: "mac-like"