Re: telnet  was: BBS nostalgia
  By: Nancy Backus to Eric Oulashin on Sun Jan 09 2011 23:19:45

 > I didn't take to telnet until there were no longer any local bbses that
 > I could dial in to... If there were any now, I could still do dialup. 

When I started using the internet, it seemed to me that telnet (and similar
protocols, such as SSH) were used to get onto remote UNIX/Linux accounts and
use computers that way, and I had used it as such, since ISPs in the 90s often
provided a shell account to their users.  But for some reason, telnetting into
a BBS seemed a little silly for me - maybe that was because most BBSs then were
still using POTS.

 > But, as a user, I really don't see much difference between telnet and
 > dialup... it uses a different program to do the "dialing", and one
 > doesn't hear the handshake any more... but once you get to the bbs, it's
 > just like having called POTS.  Telnetting lets me access a bbs located
 > anywhere, without long-distance fees...

That's all true.  :)  It still feels basically the same using telnet, although
part of it just seems different.  I think one reason is that I never used
telnet in DOS; internet apps are more readily available for Windows and other
operating systems.  And sometimes I still miss using a modem to connect to a
BBS.  At least when I first started using BBSs, something was exciting about
using a phone line with my computer to connect to another computer and
listening to it connect, and then finally getting on. :)

 > here know... I'm still pretty much totally DOS, by choice, and that
 > helps to limit some of my internet activity...  ;)

Why is it that you still mostly use DOS?

Eric
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