WINTCPIP - Telnet

Refurbishing delayed

This page is suffering from long deferred maintenance, partly because I have very little use for a telnet client. About the only time I use telnet is when my Web browser links me to an online catalog in some library. For that purpose I'm perfectly satisfied with the Windows 95 and Windows NT telnet client. Two summers have now passed and I still haven't been motivated to look at alternative telnet clients so I can update this page. You can find such clients for yourself at some of the sites mentioned in my Windows 95/98 Information Sources page.

--Note added September 2, 1998.

The glaring deficiency in the Winsock pantheon of shareware Internet clients is the absence of a good, full-function, stand-alone telnet client. Here I describe some alternatives I have tried.

WinQVT/Net

Comment: WinQVT/Net is an integrated package that includes telnet, FTP, FTP server, gopher, mail, and news reader functions, among others. In versions through 3.98, these separate client and server functions were launched from a console window. This restricted use of the telnet client as a viewer or helper application with Gopher or World Wide Web browsers.

Beginning with the 32-bit version 4.0, each function is a stand-alone program that can be used independently of the others. The telnet client may be the best available shareware Winsock telnet client. You can select terminal emulations and customize the keyboard. The resizable telnet window includes scrollback and session logging. You can run several simultaneous telnet sessions.

License: Shareware registration is $40. There has been discussion in alt.winsock and other news groups about the difficulty of getting any response to e-mail and fax messages from the author of WinQVT/Net. Paying the license fee may be difficult as a result.

Version (16-bit): 3.98
File name: qvtws398.zip (November 5, 1995 | 399,929 bytes)
is available by anonymous FTP or by Gopher.

Version (32-bit): 4.04
File name: qvtnet40.zip (May 6, 1996 | 2,476,238 bytes)
is available by anonymous FTP or by Gopher.

Caveats: WinQVT/Net has a history of frequent revisions with no obvious change in the version number. Through several releases of version 3.98, the Windows title bar indicated only that it was version 3.9. The customary Windows Help About selection was not available. However, the WinQVT/Net Control Menu (opened by clicking the minus sign button, or the program icon in Win95, in the upper left corner of the window) included the selection About WinQVT/Net.... Selecting this item on the Control menu displayed a version number. Sometimes new releases occurred every few days. Only the date and file size on the ZIP file indicated that a revision had been made. In version 4.0, the individual applications are inconsistent about displaying a version number and the number in each application may disagree with the number in the README.DOC file.

Through the frequent changes, things that worked in one version were sometimes "broken" in a subsequent version. For example, the FTP server was reliable in version 3.97. In several early releases of version 3.98, the FTP server caused a GPF when a client accessed the server and attempted to change the working directory. This problem disappeared with the edition of version 3.98 that was released in the ZIP file dated February 15, 1995.

TRUMPET TELNET

Comment: This simple client is a useful telnet viewer or helper with Gopher or World Wide Web clients. Windows 95 users will be better served by the Win95 Telnet client. Trumpet Telnet lacks sophisticated features needed by heavy users of telnet.

This file is included in the WINAP21F.ZIP file distributed as part of the Trumpet Winsock package.

EWAN

Comment: EWAN (Emulator Without a Good Name) is a more complete Winsock telnet client than Trumpet Telnet. It allows printing the screen, printing the scrollback buffer, and logging a session to a file. It also can be used as a terminal/telnet viewer with Gopher or World Wide Web clients.

QWS3270

Comment: Telnet clients usually emulate a VT100 terminal or one of its variations, the standard for connecting to a UNIX host. However, telneting to an IBM mainframe requires emulation of an IBM 3270 terminal. QWS3270 provides this functionality. I was especially pleased with the easily-configured, four-color capability that makes it easier to distinguish protected, unprotected, and highlighted text on a VM screen.

Windows and TCP/IP for Internet Access

TELNET

Refurbishing delayed

WinQVT/Net

TRUMPET TELNET

EWAN

QWS3270