If you are trying to ping machines by name you will have issues since there is no WINS server.
People tend to get confused easy with a Class A IP range for their network. If you can try configuring your router/gateway to assing a 192.168.1.X type of range with a net mask of 255.255.255.0 (so compared to your current router config make the range 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254, Netmask: 255.255.255.0) Give the router an address like 192.168.1.1 (default gateway) Just remember that from now on you are going to telnet to that new address.
If you dont feel comfortable with doing this than leave it the way it is. However you will need to set the mask back to 255.0.0.0 with that type of IP range.
Your machines by default would probably be set to DHCP. IF you want to have some fun I would manually specify the IP's of each machines. Then for netbios networking you can add entries in LMHOST files with machine names to IP addresses. This is where a WINS server is nice since it takes care of that for you. However if you had no idea what I just said maybe thats not a good idea, just yet
Just remember to view your current IP settings from the command prompt just type ipconfig /all for XP/NT machines.
If you can ping 127.0.0.1 and get a reply, TCP/IP is working.
First thing first. Try getting your IP issues worked out and being able to ping each machine by IP address and not name. Personally I would revamp the routers settings to have a 192.168.1.X address range and mask of 255.255.255.0 as it makes it a little easier to understand.