I have a good computer I would like to do all my design and programing from in my house and a cheap p166 computer Id like to put in my shop (40 feet away).
Is there a way to make the p166 a dumb terminal so it basically emulates what the good computer is doing?

Id prefer to have the good computer doing all the hard work and communicating with the cnc mill with out exposing it to the harsh environment of my shop.

I have a ethernet connection on both computers and a router as well as a hub.
The good computer is loaded with XP while the p166 has windows 98.

Setup the XP Remote Access... there are many good how to's on net... but one is

http://www.pctechnicians.ca/help/remote.html

for more detail or other discussions just google windows xp remote setup

however...remember the programs are running on the XP machine so calls to ports will be the ports on the XP machine... not the one in the shop....
So if you're wanting to run control software which talks to the port, you HAVE TO run those on the P166