News wrote:

What I can't see is the phone from the Netbook. Should I be able to?
I perhaps naively assumed the phone would appear on the Netbook
(W98)

Earlier versions of Android presented as USB removable storage so would
look like an external drive to a PC, but newer versions use MTP or PTP
instead, so the phone doesn't have to unmount the storage to allow the
PC to mount it.

Win98(!) doesn't come with MTP drivers, you might be able to find some
and install them, e.g.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/171263/mtp-devices-in-windows-me/?p=957830