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by e808 1268 days ago
I recall in the late 80s on vt100's accessing BITNET allowed you to 'net send'-like to other BITNET nodes around the country. I used to randomly try to contact other users at other random educational institutions after using the 'finger' equivalent to remote BITNET sites. I can only imagine how my messaging probably messed up their terminal session screens and just end-user confusion ensuing.

Another 'write' unix shenanigans was the ability to send control sequences, so one could send a 'terminal reset' sequence to any user online a terminal room using a dumb terminal (wyse, vt100 etc) and it would quickly reset the terminal and log them off. One could even send a long sequence of control strings to force a crude ascii animation, then reset terminal if you wish. (not me of course)

1 comments

> to 'net send'-like to other BITNET node

The command was TELL on IBM VM operating systems, IIRC. "TELL <user> AT <node> <message>".