[nickpsecurity]

Great stuff! A bit like the old BBS days albeit not as great an interface. Someone with a sniffer should see what traffic size is during article load on Telnet vs web version w/ cache cleared. I'm curious if it's more or less efficient.

On a related note, I was digging up info on old systems. OpenVMS this time. One company that still supports terminal ("green screen") and web apps had interesting things to say.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/openvms_notes_my_OpenV...

In paradigm changes section, they pointed out they had been doing textual apps because they were easy, worked, and ran really fast. They apparently supported tons of users on a few VMS boxes that way. Hardly any company was interested unless they had a web interface. Switching to Web made the services 2-5x slower, necessitating hardware and software upgrades. They also had security troubles. Business is booming, though.

Lots of lessons to be learned. Old way was fast but harder to use and inflexible. Web is easier interface but slow and insecure. I still think client-server w/ minimal GUI's (eg REBOL) w/ efficient protocol is best middle ground.

[salgernon]

I keep reposting this comment, but whenever telnet is mentioned (fun simulation of 1980s):

telnet telehack.com .... . usenet

I with they had trn installed.

[nickpsecurity]

Naturally I did some googling on "telehack" before typing it into the terminal. ;) So, I run it and see some familiar things. Talking to Eliza is a trap. I try StarWars expecting a banner or game. What I find... the movie rendered as text art... is awesome. The level of detail and compromises they made were great.

Thanks for the link as I'm sure I'll find more interesting stuff on here. :)

[d-crane]

Huge telehack fan here, glad to see it get mentioned -- this immediately reminded me of TH.