How to Watch Movies Using Telnet

This WikiHow will show you how you can use the telnet client to watch an ASCII (text art) version of Star Wars through command prompt.

Open the Start Menu .

Click on 'Run'. (You can also open Run by pressing WinKey + R.)

In the window that opens up, type in "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes, and hit enter.

It may take a minute to connect, but soon it will play Star Wars Episode IV in ASCII.

Note: This is not a hidden movie in Windows. You are using a program called telnet and connecting a server called towel.blinkenlights.nl. Once connected, the server plays the movie (an ASCII art animation).

Tips

• Due to the limited nature of Telnet, no sound is played.
• One other telnet movie you can watch is "telnet ascii-wm.net 2006". It's blurry, but it's supposed to be the Soccer World Cup.
• For some browsers, you can just type in telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl or telnet://ascii-wm.net:2006 into your address bar or click the link.
• Windows Vista, by default, does not come with the Telnet client pre-installed. To install it, open the control panel, and go to Add & Remove Programs >> Windows Features >> And check the box next to Telnet. Alternatively, you can install a third-party telnet client like Putty.
• You can also use the Telnet client to access BBSes, (Bulletin Board Systems). BBS was the precursor to the modern day internet, and a typical BBS has message boards, chat rooms, games (DOORs)and downloads.

Things You'll Need

• A computer
• A telnet client (there is one included in most operating systems (for example, Mac, Windows and Linux), which can be accessed through the command prompt and terminal, respectively)
• An Internet connection