My fingers type “telnet” themselves out of muscle memory, but is it actually better for anything than netcat?
Edit: ah, clarified by other page:
> Ncat is our modern reinvention of the venerable Netcat (nc) tool released by Hobbit in 1996. While Ncat is similar to Netcat in spirit, they don't share any source code.
#!/bin/sh
nc -v "$1" "${2:-23}"
% cat /package/admin/djbwares/command/mconnect
#!/bin/sh
# WARNING: This file was auto-generated. Do not edit!
exec /usr/local/bin/tcpclient -RHl0 -- "${1-0}" "${2-25}" /usr/local/bin/mconnect-io
%
* https://jdebp.uk/Softwares/djbwares/guide/commands/mconnect-...
* https://jdebp.uk/Softwares/djbwares/guide/commands/finger@.x...
* https://jdebp.uk/Softwares/djbwares/guide/commands/who@.xml
Telnet better supports interactive terminal applications by exchanging info like the TERM environment setting, screen size, translation codes, etc.
Netcat doesn’t do any of that, but is simpler and better suited for sending or receiving binary data. It also has features that telnet doesn’t, like listening for incoming TCP connections and sending and receiving on UDP ports.
It's pretty rare to use Telnet these days. The exception is when you have to connect to devices like automation equipment, test equipment, admin ports on LAN switches, etc. Those devices shouldn't be on the internet, so they're not as much of a concern.