
List of Telnet-accessible Systems (1997) - sysoleg
http://www.lights.ca/hytelnet/oth/oth000.html
======
jpswade
CDNow.com was an online retailer. The company was founded in February 1994 by
twin brothers Jason Olim and Matthew Olim of Ambler, Pennsylvania. Initially
launched as a Telnet service in August 1994, CDNow became a retail website in
September 1994.

~~~
sireat
Indeed, CDNow started before Amazon despite later being merged into Amazon.

I used to buy CDs through CDNow using Telnet in 1994-1995.

------
Twisol
Aside from a variety of MUDs (see topmudsites.com for a bunch), one of my
favorite Telnet destinations is HORIZONS
([https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi](https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi)).

> This tool provides a web-based limited interface to JPL's HORIZONS system
> which can be used to generate ephemerides for solar-system bodies. Full
> access to HORIZONS features is available via the primary telnet interface.

~~~
kchoudhu
Came here to post this one. I've had some seriously awesome times messing
around with this service.

------
emersonrsantos
Wikimedia has a telnet gateway with a TOR hidden service:
[https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Telnet_gateway](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Telnet_gateway)

------
i336_
OK, I bit the bullet, scraped all the webpages, and tried all of them in a
loop.

\-- None work. --

Sorry.

However, it was interesting to observe that some of the domains do still
actually resolve.

\--

Here's the general idea I used (I think this is all of the commands), in case
anyone is curious.

    
    
      $ wget http://www.lights.ca/hytelnet/oth/oth000.html
      $ mkdir x
      $ cd x
    
      $ wget $(grep -o '<a href=[^>]\+' ../oth000.html |\
        sed 's,<a href=,http://www.lights.ca,' |\
        grep oth)
    
      $ grep '^TELNET ' * | cut -d' ' -f2 | while IFS=: read -a x; do
          echo -n "${x[0]}: ";
          dig +noall +answer A ${x[0]} | sed -n '/IN\tA/s/.*IN\tA\t//p' | tr '\n' ' ';
          echo; done | tee workingdomains.txt
    
      $ grep '^TELNET ' * | cut -d' ' -f2 | while IFS=: read -a x; do
          grep -q "${x[0]}: [^$]" workingdomains.txt || continue; echo "${x[0]}";
          ncat -w 5 -v ${x[0]} ${x[1]:-23}; echo ---; done
    
    

Not perfect by any means, others will likely have much simpler ideas, but it
worked, I guess.

The first grep command spits out the list of working domains and may be of
interest.

The command is blind to the three straight IP addresses in the HTML files,
which I tested manually (also didn't work) for completeness.

------
verri
Until a few years ago, a lot of freenets (like the 'AzTec' one) were still
online and publicly accessible. It was always fun to roam those in search of
some forgotten gems.

------
ninjakeyboard
List needs to be amended with StarWars over telnet:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl ([http://lifehacker.com/373571/watch-star-wars-
in-text-via-tel...](http://lifehacker.com/373571/watch-star-wars-in-text-via-
telnet))

~~~
Neliquat
I like to imagine a world where that is the only copy.

------
d-crane
My favorite telnet destination, and one of the few net destinations I still
visit ~5 years later, is telehack.

telnet telehack.com

I've seen it mentioned a few times on HN, but only intermittently. I know
they've recently added a system to exchange files (including BASIC programs,
iirc!) with other users, which is pretty cool.

------
mabynogy
SDF still provides a free shell:

ssh://new@sdf.org

[https://sdf.org/](https://sdf.org/)

~~~
delinka
nit: SSH != Telnet

~~~
jboynyc
Until about a month ago, new account creation was still through telnet, but in
this "mobile first" age, that didn't make much sense anymore.

------
tyingq
Tried 5 of them randomly picked. None worked. Guess this is more for
historical value.

There's also what looks to be an Apache SSI error at the top and bottom of the
page: [an error occurred while processing this directive]

------
kyberias
I like modems. How feasible is it to run actual, real modems over IP-based
network? Sampling audio at one end and playing it back on the other. We could
have the old BBSs back. That would be great.

~~~
contingencies
[http://iaxmodem.sourceforge.net/](http://iaxmodem.sourceforge.net/)

I ran a business on this, it works fine.

~~~
kyberias
Yeah that's a software modem. I meant using real modems over internet. I know,
makes no sense really. This is only nostalgia.

------
garaetjjte
Pong and Tetris playable via Telnet

    
    
        telnet milek7.pl

------
contingencies
telnet bbs.l0pht.com # worked in 1997!

