UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

That is pretty much exactly what i have, except that my connectors are 25 pin, and i will have to remove a couple pins to make it fit. I don't need to use that phone connector do I? I was just going to make a straight connection between two serial ports (swapping pin 2 and 3 like corona said)

You have to end up with pin 2 on one machine connected to pin 3 on the other, and pin 3 on the first machine connected to pin 2 on the other. Then have pin 7 connected to pin 7. How you do that is up to you. But the easiest and most reliable way to do that is with pre-made components that do not require soldering

Alright thanks.
These are pre-made components that don't require soldering. My dad used to work for Rockwell back in the 70s, these are some leftover parts he had lying around.
I will start by connecting the pins like you told me to. Should I connect any other pins?

No, just make sure that the ones you don't use don't short each other out.
On the other hand, it may be cheaper and a lot simpler to buy a USB diskette drive for the Ubuntu machine.

If they are both 25 pin then it is 2, 3, and 7 on one end and 3, 2, and 7 on the other. 2 for tx, 3 for rx, and 7 as common.

Sometimes you get something fully implemented and have to force the handshakes 4 to 5 and 6 to 20, but don't worry about that until it doesn't work simple.

No, no, this is better.

Any floppy disk old enough to be an original install is probably broken, be it by dust, misalignment, or just plain not agreeing with modern floppy drives in some mysterious way(I suspect there's been a lot of specification creep over the years. Modern drives seem to fail faster and faster, too.)

Well, I just realized something stupid. My parallel port connectors are all male connectors, and the serial port on computers is also a male connector instead of female.
It's possible that there are some serial connectors in storage somewhere. If not, I can probably scrap together some old cables. Not quite what i wanted to do, but if it makes a connection...
It is a 9pin serial port, not a 25 pin. I probably threw you guys off mentioning the parallel port.
If i have to I might try to buy a cable. I'm not quite ready to invest in a USB Floppy Drive just yet.
I'm just afraid that its going to play me rough communicating between the computers when this cable is done. I will search for the connectors and do further reading on uucp.
Thanks for your help so far, and thanks for not scolding me for going through all this trouble to use a 20 year old OS.