Here is a site that I found that gives a visual of how Telnet works, for those people like me that like to see how things work: http://www2.rad.com/networks/1997/telnet/proj.htm#Network%20Virtual Don't try the links, though, because they all seem to be expired. I got the best explanations of Telnet by going to google and asking it to define Telnet for me. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q=define:Telnet The most basic and easy to understand definition of Telnet (for me, anyway) is this: The term "TELNET" refers to a specific protocol that provides remote computer access. The term itself refers to Telephone Networking, which was later shortened to Telnet and now relates to any networked connection. Telnet allows for remote access of a computer and to provide the ability to instruct that computer to create, edit, execute, and delete files just as if the user were sitting at that computer. The use of this term as a verb, as in "Telnet to a host," means to establish a connection across a network from one system to another using the Telnet protocol. Usually, you must have an account on the remote system to be able to login to it. However, some systems provide public services (generally referred to as anonymous access accounts) that do not require a personal account, but also limit what can be done in that system. Recently, many systems have been transitioning away from the Telnet protocol and opting for one of the more 'secure' protocols. These other protocols encrypt the transmitted information to make it more difficult to see what is being done. The encryption helps to keep the systems and data more secure from unapproved access. Found at: http://oregonstate.edu/cws/tutorials/command-shell/ I went to the Library of Congress as one of my places to try out Telnet telnet://locis.loc.gov. Try as I might, I couldn't past finding out that they had the information I wanted (air control emissions in 1990) and then not being able to access it. I guess I'll try again at a later time when I'm not as tired. What I found out is that Telnet is a pared down way to access servers. For those of us that were technically advanced 25 years ago, it was like playing games in DOS on my old Commodore computer. Then along came my net hook-up in about 1983 and I could play games in DOS on the Internet. It requires much more of a thought process than the current games played on the Internet or on Playstations. Melissa "EARTH FIRST! We'll strip-mine the other planets later. "