IP 192.168.1.1 cannot use for ICS?

i’ve a win98se pc with fixed ip “192.168.1.1”
i want to configure it as the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) host so that the rest of the win98se pc which under Novell network are able to access to internet through this pc. however, seems like all the pc can’t share the internet if this pc has the ip of .1.1
i can ping it from the rest of the network, and all the other pc are obtaining their ip automatically, no DHCP server exists in the network. how come without changing any of the clientconfiguration, i can share the internet connection ONLY IF i changed this pc ip to “192.168.0.1”. howcome “192.168.1.1” cannot be used?