1. Introduction

This paper describes a first cut at a proposed Telnet protocol. Telnet is a process which runs at a user's site and allows him to utilize a typewriter-like terminal to gain interactive service from a remote server _site over the ARPA Network. This paper was motivated by our need to set specifications for a protocol which would allow online access to the Network Information Center (NIC). The Online System running at the Network Information Center we will refer to as NLS(NIC). On thinking about the problem of setting specifications for access to the NIC, we have tried to generalize our ideas so that they would apply to other systems with characteristics similar to ours. We realize that there are other terminal hardware-software disciplines which might find it difficult to conform to all the requirements stated here and, therefore, the final Telnet protocol will differ from the one stated in this NWG/RFC. One conclusion that we may all have to come to is that connection with the network may force us toward a more standard way of handling terminals and their character streams in our monitors and terminal control hardware. In the meantime, we hope that this paper and others on the same subject that may be in process, coupled with a survey of hardware-software requirements at each site by a NWG subgroup, can result in an initial standard network Telnet protocol being agreed upon quickly, as it is important to get users onto the network as soon as possible so that interactive network usage can indicate further directions for network protocol evolution. Next we outline some design problems, then propose some conventions to solve these problems for access to systems such as the NLS(NIC) and indicate some problems needing further study. The proposed conventions for access to the NLS(NIC) are summarized in Appendix A.