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From: owen@raven.phys.washington.edu (Russell Owen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Subject: Re: Telnet INTO a Mac ?
Message-ID: <18447@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 91 04:56:49 GMT
References: <1991Mar14.011826.18836@marlin.jcu.edu.au> <18365@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Mar14.060604.19964@PacBell.COM>
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In article <1991Mar14.060604.19964@PacBell.COM> perl@PacBell.COM (Richard
Perlman) writes:
>>In article <1991Mar14.011826.18836@marlin.jcu.edu.au> chma@marlin.jcu.edu.au
(Michael Antolovich) writes:
>> I know all about (sort of) NCSA Telnet etc.  What I would like to know 
>> is :-  Is there any software that would allow a Telnet session into a Mac ? 

>
>Yes. VersaTerm 4.5 (and the newest version of VersaTerm PRO -- I
>don't know the version number).  Both support ACCEPTING a telnet
>connection.

True, but the telnet and ftp implementations in VersaTerm (both flavors)
are VERY limited. Examples:
- telnet insists on storing ip numerical addresses, even if you just give
  it a domainish address. Stupid, and asking for trouble.
- only one telnet connection at a time (unless you run multiple copies
  of VersaTerm, as the manual points out -- riiiight)
- no easy access to an address list. To open a connection to a
  different machine than is currently configured, you:
  - bring up "configure telnet"
  - select the address
  - close the window
  - choose "open connection"
- cannot open an ftp session w/out already having a telnet session --
  so you cannot do anonymous ftp. I believe this is the same limitation
  that vanilla NCSA Telnet has (and which BYU has fixed).

NCSA/BYU Telnet is worlds better than the new VersaTerm for telnet and ftp.
VersaTerm does serial well, and does better Tek 4105 emulation (NCSA is still
ironing it out). I suspect future versions of VersaTerm will address its
 current limitations -- VersaTerm is one of the best-supported pieces of
software I have seen. But don't buy the current version for TCP/IP services;
you'll be very disappointed.

-- Russell
owen@raven.phys.washington.edu

owen@raven.phys.washington.edu