Imaginary Telnet: For When Your Connection Cuts Out.

You will need:
  • 2 People
  • Sufficient geekiness necessary to actually understand it.

Imaginary Telnet is one of the games me, my friends, and people at Comp. Sci. places like to play. The basic premise is simple. Two people stand at opposite sides of the room and emulate a telnet session, with one being the server and one being the client.

For example, I could be the telnetter and my friend (/me nods to person standing over there) can be an SMTP mail server. So, the exchange would go something like this: Me: telnet johndoe.net 25! Connecting noise...(usually someone (badly) imitating the modem sound, although this is not strictly necessary.) Him: 220 mail.johndoe.net ESMTP MailSoftware Me: helo notcrazyyet@johndoe.net Him: 250 mail.johndoe.net Me: mail from: notcrazyyet@johndoe.net Him: 250 Ok. Me: rcpt to: john@johndoe.net Him: 250 Ok. Me: data Him: 354 End data with RETURN . RETURN Me: Hi John! Looks like the new server is up! . Me: quit Him: 221 Bye Both of us together: Connection To Host Lost!

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. It's probably somewhere between "What a pointless game" and "Help! Save me from the geeks!". However, it actually...er...is pointless. But fun, for the minute few who actually like emulating telnet sessions.

With the many different types of server around, this game can get interesting, especially when someone uses an unusual port, which results in lots of quick note-reading to find out what protocol the client is using.

Hardcore Version: Speak in direct binary. As in, "1010010101001010" with the raw packets. This makes it extra fun when you use ssh, so no-one knows what you're saying.

Next week: The imaginary FTP Game!