In the meantime, I had been advised
about the subnet address problem and alternately had one port assigned
by DHCP and the other to 192.168.10.1. The results are the same. Given
that the dongle is not a workable option, I still have the eth0 port
not even showing connectivity. The dongle at least showed connectivity
even if it can't sustain the speed. The port on the T61 is supposed to
be GigE capable, but I can't get it it even show connectivity when
configured with a fixed address.
Al W8KHP
It could be that the auto-speed/auto-negotiation on the T61 doesn't
work quite right.