Wave Telnet info

In the terminal you can toggle local echo on/off and also toggle linefeeds on/off.

BBS's will generally echo your keypresses back so theterminal can display them to the screen, but other
terminal programs usually do not echo back. By default, they usually don't add linefeeds to a carriage return
either.

29/05/2000...
Some Hints and Tips.
I have noticed a few people (myself included) getting confused with the way the Wave connects using the ISP directory.

Connecting from the Terminal
My usuall way to connect, is to start a "new terminal" from the Browser Screen (the screen goes Black) which shows you have entered the Terminal Mode, then select the "ISP Directory" and dial out.

Connecting from the Browser
The other way is to select the "ISP Directory" from the Browser Screen and dial out. After the connection is made and your Mouse Pointer has appeared you *must* choose "new terminal" and then "internet session".

After you have done this the dialogue box appears and you can then choose Telnet.

The backslash, tilde, and underscore characters can be entered just like you would if you were using geoWrite. In fact, the CMDR/i for the TAB is used in geoWrite also since the 64 has no TAB key.

22/05/2000...
Some hints and tips about URL's and Telnet.

If you were supposed to enter http://www, I would have said so. You enter the addresses exactly like I said and they will work.

Most people today are only familiar with browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer. They have a URL bar containing info on where to go to and how to get there. You are obviously confused due to the way a browser's URL bar works. The listing in a URL bar is more than just an address. It also contains a protocol and a path in the following order:

The path is the full path to the html document desired. In many cases, this will be omitted and in those cases, both the browser and the remote host understand that the user generally intends to fetch the "index.html" file.

In that line, the path is "geos/info/coolstuff.html" The path includes the subdirectories and the desired file. The remote host will go to the subdirectory called "geos" and then in that directory, it will find another subdir called "info". Finally, within that subdir, it will look for the file called "coolstuff.html".

These subdirectories are ocated on the remote host's machine and the file "coolstuff.html" will be found by traversing these subdirectories. This full path tells the remote host which file you want and where the file can be found.

The "www.cbmrules.com" is the address of the remote host on the Internet. Remember, "http://" has nothing to do with the location of the remote host. And in fact, neither does the "www". The remote host is really located at "cbmrules.com". When you see "www" added, that merely helps the remote server decide on what direction to take internally with your file requests. Maybe. It all depends on how the programmers at the remote host want to do things. To us users, it just seems like part of the address.

Now, when telnetting, things are a little different, but not really. Think of telnet as something to take the place of http. Telnet is a protocol just like http is a protocol. When a web browser fetches a web page using the http protocol, both the browser software and the remote host software exchange information back and forth in a manner that they both understand. This gets the intended file transferred to your machine in an orderly fashion. Both ends understand the protocol, so the transfer gets done correctly.

If you've ever uploaded and download files to/from a BBS, you'veprobably used XModem, YModem, or ZModem to do the transfers. Those are protocols that are used to make sure the file is transferred correctly.

Back to telnet...
Telnet is a protocol that lets both the telnet terminal and the remote host communicate with each other. This communication is all done over the same Internet link as any browser would use the http protocol over. Information is sent bac and forth, and for the most part this is information that comes from you, the user. You are allowed to type on the keyboard and the characters you generate are sent to the remote host using the telnet protocol to transfer the characters. Since we are sending these characters over the Internet using the telnet protocol, the remote host knows what to do with them. And the remote host also sends back character that will end up being displayed on your screen.

But, we don't have to type in "telnet://videocam.net.au" in the terminal dialogue box to get where we want to go.

The terminal already knows it's going to use the telnet protocol because that's the dialogue box that you're working in. All it needs is the address of the telnet site you want to visit. And since we're not using the http protocol, you can't put tht in the address either. The telnet software would only interpret that as part of the address which would not be correct at all.

So, when telnetting, you want only the address of the site. You don't want to enter a path either because we are not fetching any file like we would if we were using the browser. We are merely connecting to the remote host just as if it were a BBS that we were dialng up directly. In fact, most telnet sites work very much like BBS's. They will provide menus or other functions with which to navigate around their site.

On the other hand, visiting web sites with a browser only sends html files to the browser. It's up to the browser to display the file. These html files can contain links to other files which the browser will then fetch if clicked on. (Before anybody corrects me, I know that other stuff can be done like Java and such, but that's beyond the simpe example I'm trying to provide here)

But on a telnet site, if you select a menu item or some other means of navigation, the telnet site will send a stream of characters that go straight to your screen to form another menu or whatever information is to be displayed.

Telnet sites have an advantage over web sites in that they can directly interact with the user. For instance, you can load and run software on the videocam.net.au site that's designed to be run by remote terminals. The Pine email and Pico text editing software are perfect examples.
You can't do this stuff with a browser.

If a browser needs to fill out a form with info it is all done on the local machine and then the form data is sent back to the web site. But on a telnet site, anytime information needs to be entered, every character is sent as it's typed and the software running on the remote site will deal with those characters and you generally get an immediate response on your screen. For instance you can be typing a letter using Pine.
The letter is being generated on the remote host's machine as you type it. You see it on your own screen just like if you were running a word processor on your own machine.

In the Wave, when you select your ISP from the ISP directory, it will dial out and get you connected. Give this some time to get the connection going. We don't have it yet, but soon there will be a series of dialogue boxe informing you of the progress that's being made during the connection. In the meantime, just watch your modem lights and you'll get a feel for what's going on.

If the connection is successful, the Internet session dialogue box will pop up. From this, you choose "telnet". Then another box comes up and you type in the address of the remote host you want to connect to. Now, The Wave knows where you want to go, so to speak. It knows the name of the site, but not the true Internet address.

This is what the DNS servers are for.

When you type in "delphi.com", you are typing in what is usually known as a domain name. I have referred to it as an address, but this is really not true. The actual address for delphi.com is 199.93.4.65. Which is easier to remember, "delphi.com" or "199.93.4.65"?
Us humans tend to remember names better than a series of numbers. This is why we have the Domain Name System, or is it Domain Name Service. Either way, this is what DNS is. This is an Internet service that is a huge database of addesses. This database contains a listing for delphi.com and when the DNS server looks it up, it will find the address that's needed to connect to delphi.com.

The work of accessing this database is split up among many different machines throughout the Internet. And each ISP will have access to one or two DNS addresses. The Wave needs to know these addresses or it won't be able to find out how to get to any of the telnet sites.
And likewise, when we get connected with the browser, it will lso need to know how to find the DNS machines. Some ISP's will provide the DNS addresses to The Wave during the initial PPP connection when you first dial out to your ISP. Other ISP's will require you to manually enter the DNS addresses into The Wave's ISP directory. If your ISP has provided you with the DNS info, then be sure to enter them when you set up your ISP directory.

So, when you try to telnet to "delphi.com", The Wavewill first connect to your DNS server and send a request for "delphi.com".
If the DNS server finds the info, it will send back the correct address of "199.93.4.65". And then The Wave will know where to go to. If you already know the actual address like "199.93.4.65", you can type this in instead of "delphi.com".
In that case, you supplied the actual address and the DNS server won't need to be accessed. This gets the connection going a little bit faster.

When you disconnect from a telnet site, you are still connected to the Internet. Generally, the telnet dialogue box will pop up after you've left the telnet site you're visiting. At that point, you can enter another telnet name or simply hang up. When hanging up, there might be a pause for several seconds as The Wave tries to do a clean disconnect from the Internet and your ISP.

-Maurice

You may or may not see asterisks when you get a password prompt. It all depends on how the software is programmed at the other end. Don't worry about that and just type your password. The only way you'll see asterisks is if the other end sends asterisks. If it sends nothing back, then you see nothing as you type. That's completely up to the remote host you're sending your password to.

From your description, it sounds like you're using the manul login method. That's OK if that's the only method that works. If you don't want to keep typing this in everytime, try either the "auto" or "pap" login methods. Use pap as long as your ISP supports it. To change methods, select "edit" after bringing up the ISP directory. Change to PAP login and then also be sure to enter a password and username in the edit box. Since you used manual mode before, you'll have to enter these into your ISP dir entry.

Using the ISP directory to log into the internet does nothing except get you a connection to the network (the Internet). Once this occurs, you can then telnet somewhere. Try Doc's Place. Enter the following when the telnet DB comes up:

You can try telnetting to Delphi just to see if it works. You can't actually get into Delphi without an account, but if you at least get to their Username prompt, you'll know it works.

I wanted to add to this, as we've noticed a few people trying to log in who are probably members of this mailing list.

The yearly $30 Australian (approx $19.95 US) Membership goes to cover our costs such as the phone lines and to help pay our data charges for the mailing lists and Email members receive. It's something that we make available only to Commodore users.