I first used telnet in the 1990s to connect and play a text-based MUD.
Back then we had large monitors with black background and green text
font; for most people black background and white text was probably
more common, but I remember having played that MUD for some weeks
on such a setup (on a campus site, so these computers were used by
students; we only had access to the campus on the weekend as the
main guy's father in our group worked at that university).
It actually was fun to use telnet like that and play the MUD, even
if inconvenient. Of course our group soon switched to MUD clients
that were more convenient to use, so using telnet became super-rare.
I only used telnet a few more times after that. About three times
again playing lateron when I had no internet connection, and for
a few other things too, unrelated to MUDs, e. g. testing websites
and similar activities.
For connections, I kind of use ssh much more frequently so, even
on windows via the tabby terminal. It is not as convenient on
Linux (there I tend to prefer KDE konsole) but it works fairly well.
I have not used telnet in quite some years now, but I still remember
fondly to having typed commands to search for herbs in a meadow
on that MUD (well, room designated was meadows and you could
find herbs which would replenish over time, so you could search,
sell and so forth; I have not played any MUDs since decades but
it was fun in the 1990s era).
Telnet will probably never die since it is so simple, but I think
it is also not quite as important as it was, say, in the 1990s or
so. Would be interesting for statistics that could measure this
more objectively.
Back then we had large monitors with black background and green text font; for most people black background and white text was probably more common, but I remember having played that MUD for some weeks on such a setup (on a campus site, so these computers were used by students; we only had access to the campus on the weekend as the main guy's father in our group worked at that university).
It actually was fun to use telnet like that and play the MUD, even if inconvenient. Of course our group soon switched to MUD clients that were more convenient to use, so using telnet became super-rare. I only used telnet a few more times after that. About three times again playing lateron when I had no internet connection, and for a few other things too, unrelated to MUDs, e. g. testing websites and similar activities.
For connections, I kind of use ssh much more frequently so, even on windows via the tabby terminal. It is not as convenient on Linux (there I tend to prefer KDE konsole) but it works fairly well.
I have not used telnet in quite some years now, but I still remember fondly to having typed commands to search for herbs in a meadow on that MUD (well, room designated was meadows and you could find herbs which would replenish over time, so you could search, sell and so forth; I have not played any MUDs since decades but it was fun in the 1990s era).
Telnet will probably never die since it is so simple, but I think it is also not quite as important as it was, say, in the 1990s or so. Would be interesting for statistics that could measure this more objectively.