I solved the USB / ADSL modem problem by installing drivers. I went to the Alcatel website and got the most recent driver for my ADSL modem. Of course, since I couldn’t keep an internet connection open long enough on the new machine, I had to use the old machine to download it. The already compressed files were larger than could fit on one diskette, so I had to zip to 4 diskettes to transfer from one machine to the other. I also installed USB drivers that came with the motherboard CD, which I should have done before trying to use the USBs.
The network problem is not solved yet. After installing drivers that came with the motherboard CD, I thought I had it working last evening however this morning the two computers can’t see each other.